


Katie

by SharpestRose



Category: Cruel Intentions (1999), Trainspotting (1996), Velvet Goldmine
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-07-08
Updated: 1999-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:43:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 26
Words: 25,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Note: written when the author was 17, with all the drama and awkwardness that implies.) Mark Renton meets Curt Wild's daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Katie

**Author's Note:**

> Katie is important for a few reasons. For one thing, it was the first really long story I wrote that had a semblance of plot. Katherine Vivian Wild's (as she is named here) story arc is one that my later novel Ophelia's Salvation interconnects with. Katie was the first time I wrote the characters Kate and Josh in stories, obviously, and it also marks Lenore and David's debut, though these characters have altered considerably since. Katie is sometimes cliched, often contains awful grammar, punctuation and spelling, and needs a big warning for drug use, sex scenes, self-inflicted violence, and copyright infringements of pretty much everyone from Oscar Wilde to Irvine Welsh.
> 
> Oh, and it's dedicated to Kelly.

Silence is a funny thing. Sometimes it's wonderful, a blissful thing filled with sleepy sunshine and a comfortable spot to read. Or it can be joyful, the space between laughter. It can be the second after you've been given bad news, or the one where you emerge from sleep next to someone you love. The other end of a telephone call when they've hung up in anger. The silence you don't notice in front of a computer screen while you talk in a chatroom. The moment after a gunshot as the air settles, the silence of relief when a siren stops blaring. The thick nonsound of underwater. The dark whispers of your mind in the quiet of four a.m. 

Sometimes there's so much noise inside my head I can't hear the silence. I have to let it out, I want to be able to hear the quiet. Sometimes the noise goes quiet if I find some way to be happy, but when I'm sad or it's dark, my mind is very loud. 

Did you know that noise is red? I didn't know either, until one night when it was particularly loud - it got less overwhelming when I cut my arm and let some of the sound out. I wonder, if I let all of it out would it be silent? Even my heartbeat would be quiet then. 

Screaming lets it out too. But you can't scream when they're listening, or then they look at you so calm and quiet it's deafening. You can't do anything while they're listening, which is nearly all the time. 

If they think you're defective, they tie you down and stick a needle in your arm – it's supposed to make it quiet but it just pushes more blood and more noise into your head, fills up your veins when of course I know the only way to shut everything up is emptying them. 

Sometimes they're right, though. Their needles make it worse, but some don't. Needles with heroin make it quiet, bright white and quiet. No darkness, no noise. 

I like heroin. 

I wonder if my dad hears the noise. They thought he was defective, when he was a kid, and tried to get the noise out. I guess they didn't know that it makes it louder when they do that. When I was little, before I could hear it, I used to talk to my dad on the phone. I'd never seen him, and I could barely hear him, there was so much static on the line. We couldn't talk, there was so much noise between us. 


	2. Part one - Mark

She was so small, fragile like. No older then Dianne had been, but this wee one looked it, none of the sophistication that the other girl had seduced me with. 

She was almost anorexic, her bones stretching her pale skin tight. I didn't like to stop when I saw junkies on the street. I didn't have much sympathy for most of them, and something about them scares the living shite outta me. As if their auras would suck me in, singing a junkie siren's song to my hungry veins. Any reformed user who says they don't miss the skag is either a lying cunt or insane. 

"Give us a dollar." She ordered, making eye contact with me. I looked so respectable now I surprised myself. She wouldn't know that once I had been just like her, so desperate for a hit I would turn shameless. 

She had an English accent. I wondered how she'd washed up here, another homeless child on the streets of New York,a grim reminder of what heroin takes in return for the hit. 

"Give us a dollar." She said again, quietly, pleading. Coulda been Dianne, coulda been Spud, coulda been any of the boys. 

Coulda been me. 

I dug into my pocket, then stopped. 

"Stand up." I said to her. "I'm nawt gonna gie ye a dollar so you can go buy t' skag. I'll get ye some food." 

"Give me a dollar and I'll go buy it myself." Did she seriously think I'd fall for that? I must have looked a right doss cunt if she thought I was that gullible. 

"Get fucked." I sneered. "I'll get ye a slice o' pizza or I'll get stuffed. Your choice." 

She shrugged. "Whatever." She picked up a grimy backpack off the pavement. She had ratty brown hair pulled back off her face and big green junk bruised eyes. 

"What's your angle anyway?" she asked as we walked. Young jetsetting real-estate agent and a piece of flotsam of the city. We must have made a right pair. "Are you Scottish?" She didn't wait for my reply. "What's your name anyway?" 

"Mark. What's yours?" 

"Kate. I won't fuck you, y'know." 

"Did I ask ye tae? Christ, it's a fucking sad world where a gadge canna buy a bird a slice of pizza without intentions of getting her intae bed." 

"Well, why are you doing this then?" she seemed genuinely puzzled. 

"Because you're gonna starve if you don't eat. Ye canna live by skag alone." 

"What's it to you?" we stopped and went inside a small diner. 

"You want that dinner or not?" I snapped. To tell the truth, I had no fucking idea what I was doing. 

"Can I have a blueberry bagel and a coffee?" she asked. I smiled. Even the most hardcore addict could sometimes act like a real person, and at that second she was just a kid. 

"Coffee will stunt your growth." I teased, ordering what she wanted and a slice of greasy pizza for myself. I was trying to gain weight and not having much luck. 

"So what is your angle if it's not to shag me?" she asked through a mouthful of bagel. So I told her. Fucked if I know why, but I told her the whole thing. 

Then I asked her to return the favor and lay her soul bare. 

"Well, I grew up in London with me Mam. Pleasant enough I s'pose. We had a little money, because my dad's rich and sent lots of child support. Good school, boring shit. So, I guess it's pathetic realy, drugs filled up the boredom. I'm a poor little rich junkie. My mother freaked out, shipped me over here to live with Dad. But that was a bad scene. He's fucking crazy, a real head case. So I pissed off. Now I'm out of money and eating the most delicious bagel ever made and pouring my heart out to some yuppie who swears he's not interested in fucking me." She smiled and sipped her coffee. 

"How old are you Kate?" I asked. She really intrigued me, buggered if I know why. 

"Fourteen." She finished her food and eyed my untouched pizza hungrily. I pushed it across the table to her. 

"Why don't you go back to your Dad's? My parents forgave me everything about five hundred times. You're just a kid, you can't give up. Sure, heroin's brilliant, but it's not life. Give life another shot." I sounded like a blood preacher. Should tell her to turn to Jesus or some shite. 

She was quiet for a few minutes, chewing the pizza and staring at me. I stared back. She had a chance, if only she'd choose it. Then she stood. 

"Ok, come on, we're going somewhere." She pulled me to my feet. 

It was getting late outside, dusk had turned into night. She dragged me down a few blocks to the subway, paid for our tokens with a grimy dollar bill she produced from her even grimier jeans pocket, and continued to lead me until we got to a nightclub. 

The boucer blocked our path, obviously dismissing her for trash. She looked up at him rudely. 

"My name's on the list. That's my father. Check your list if you think I'm bullshitting you. Katherine Wild. Now let me in." 

~ 

Kate swung her legs restlessly as she sat on the barstool, watching the show. I was rapt. The music was fuckin ace, and as for Kate's dad – well at least I knew now my libido had recovered from the junk. 

As the set ended and the musos left the stage Kate jumped off her seat. 

"C'mon, let's go backstage." She ordered, dragging me again. 

~ 

"Hey Dad." She said, pushing into the dressing room without knocking. He was sitting at a table with a bottle of scotch in front of him. He looked up and his expression changed from blank depression to joy. 

"Kate! Thank fucking God!" he got up and caught her in a hug. "Thank God." He muttered again. I stood there, feeling uncomfortable, until they broke the hug. 

"Dad, this is Mark. He bought me dinner and persuaded me to come here." She introduced me. Curt looked at me and grinned. 

"Thanks Mark, for bringing back my angel. You're my main man." We shook hands and I felt something, electric. His aura calling out to my hungry heart, if you like. I could tell he felt it too. "Want to come back with us to the apartment? I feel like I owe you something." He offered. I nodded. Relinquishing junk had been nothing compared to the willpower I would have needed to resist. 

~ 

Kate must have been pretty perceptive, because when we got to the apartment she immeadiatley went to her room; "To shower and change and sleep". Strains of the Flaming Creatures' album floated out soon after. I'd never been into glam per se, but I did like a lot of it. 

I remembered stuff about Curt Wild. I never thought I'd be in his kitchen feeling that certain sort of apprehension when you know both of you are waiting for the other to move first. 

Ah, fuck that. I was never any good at mind games. 

"Kate's a good kid." I said. "I think she'll be right." 

"I didn't want her to get hooked on heroin." he told me. "I kept out of her life to keep her away from all that shit, you know? Then her mother tells me she's addicted and I think 'Hey, good luck to her, heroin's a cruel mistress but she'll never break your heart.' But maybe it's better to get your heart broken then to hide behind a drug." 

"Of course it's better!" I couldn't help blurting out. "If you don't choose life, if you don't choose to feel shite and sometimes get your heart broken, then you don't get the good stuff either." 

Curt looked at me for a second and I felt stupid for saying anything. But it's what I believe and always will. 

"Jeez, beautiful and smart. Are you real, Mark Renton, or a wet dream?" his voice was low and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, among other things. 

"I don't know. Kiss me and find out." I offered, surprised at myself. Usually I wasn't this good at small talk. 

His lips surprised me, I didn't think they would be that soft. They tasted like alcohol, tobacco, olives, sweat and spice. That kiss would have to rate highly in the five purest hits of my life. I groaned and leaned against him. I wanted to devour him, intoxicate myself and get drunk on him. It had been far too long since I was in a situation like this, and it had never been like this time. 

I moved my lips down from his, to his chin and then further down to his throat. I nibbled on the crook of his shoulder, getting a moan for my trouble. 

"You must be a wet dream." He whispered breathlessly in my ear. I didn't move my mouth from it's current occupation to reply, instead responding by slipping my hand down the non-existent space between our bodies and rubbing the crotch of the tight leather pants he wore. 

"Fuck." Curt's voice was almost unintelligible. "Fucking Christ. First you bring back Katie, and now this. Even my dreams are never this good." He gave up talking as my mouth found his again. As I began to fumble with the fly of his pants her broke the kiss, grinning wickedly. 

"Oh, no you don't. I owe you, remember." He grabbed my hand and pulled me towards his bedroom. I had spent the last couple of hours getting dragged hither and thither, no reason to give up now. 

~ 

Our mouths found each other again, almost as if they were possessed and beyond our control. Maybe they were. Some alien race took pity on the sex-starved state of affairs in our sorry lives and decided to take matters into their own hands. We ended up on the bed, me lying on my back and Curt straddling me, the same posture he had sung in earlier. 

Now, most men find this sort of situation uncomfortable, the concept of being the submissive partner in a sexual coupling. But I had spent a fair percentage of my life as a serious heroin addict, the primary action of which is to be totally and utterly fucked off your tree and at a complete lack of control. So I can't say it troubled me much. 

We just kept kissing, couldn't get enough of each other. When you've been celebate for that long, sucking face with the most beautiful man you've ever seen is one helluva enticing prospect. Eventually Curt's mouth left mine, taking the same wandering trail from chin to neck mine had earlier. He ripped open the cheap white shirt I had worn to work and kissed his way down, taking special care to sweetly torture my nipples as much as he could without electing a punch in the head from me. As he reached my belt, he looked up at me with those blue-heat eyes. 

There's a moment any junkie will tell you about, when the needle first slides into your arm, when you're absolutely dying for a hit. Just before the junk hits your vein there's this second of anticipation where your senses just turn to fuzz and all you can think is 'this is it' and you can almost feel the hit welling up in the needle and waiting to shoot into your vein. 

That feeling had nothing on this one. 

~ 

Waking up the next morning, the first thought I had was that now I needed a new shirt for work. The next was that I felt blissfully happy and content in a way I hadn't for far too long. Curt's hand, with its stubby black-laquered fingernails, was draped across my chest. I stroked the fingers lazily, looking at his face as he slept. That a bundle of raw nervous energy like him could look so angelic asleep was a concept I loved. That these fingers could coax such passion and pain out a guitar thrilled me. Mark Renton was in love. 

Almost as if he heard my thoughts, Curt's eyes opened. He looked up at me sleepily with a smile and graced my lips with a gentle kiss. 

"Hey." He said softly, half sitting up. I sat up too. Oh Gods, the morning after. In a few minutes he would quite politely suggest that I could get a coffee on the way to work, at his expense, and we could catch up later. Why I am destined to live out my life in a series of one-night stands is beyond me. But shagging Curt Wild was definitely worth any heartache I would now experience. "Look, um.." he bit his lip. Here it comes. "Katie'll be kicking the garbage out of her system over the next few days, and I'm not the most stable person-" I smiled. No shit. I'd seen his stage show. "It would be really great if someone level headed could be around……. For me as much as for Kate." 

I was speechless. Totally utterly without words. No-one ever told me choosing life would be this good. 

"Yeah, ok." I said, and his face relaxed into a happy grin. I smiled back, just as goofily. What an interesting turn of events this promised to be in the life of Renton. 


	3. Part two - Curt

She was sleeping normally. After a sickening blur of delirium and nausea and back to delirium, Katie was sleeping normally. Her face was shiny with sweat and her hair was a Robert Smith-esque tangle of knots, and I don't think I've ever cared about someone or wanted to protect them more. 

It's been a fucking long road to end up here. Michigan trailer trash fairy to bonkers rock star. When I was a kid I thought I would die before I grew up. Then I survived to adulthood and was so surprised to get there I obliterated years of my life in a mess of sex, drugs and rock and roll. 

_His lips were like the petals of a red flower, and his eyes were like violets by a river of pure water, and his body like the narcissus of a field where the mower comes not. Yet his beauty did work him evil. For he grew proud, and cruel, and selfish._

Brianmaxwelltommy, who the fuck knows who he really was. He was made of ivory and gold. Poor Curt Wild, poor rattt, poor wolf-boy. Falling in love with an angel from space. 

~ 

_He likes me, I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and then, however, he is horribly thoughtless and seems to take real delight in giving me pain. Then I feel that I have given away my whole soul to someone who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day._

~ 

So he might have cared a little, enough to kiss me and hold me in private, even when the fucking cameras weren't trained on us. I can't demonise Maxwell Demon. He wasn't a souless miser like Jerry, just a motherfucker who wanted to be famous no matter what, no matter who he hurt. 

When it all fell apart, I fell apart too. Mandy once told me it was the rawest, most gut-wrenching stuff she'd heard, the songs I sang then. 

~ 

_As he stalked off, smoking his cigarette, two young men in punk clothing passed him. He heard one of them whisper to the other "That is Curt Wild." He remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared at, or talked about. He was tired of his own name now._

~ 

Mandy and me got along pretty good, considering. We'd both had our hearts broken. Lost touch eventually, we went our separate ways when we realised we had to let the shit go and start living again. But that took a long time. Most people thought I would overdose myself into oblivion. Hell, I thought I would too. But life goes on. It's a fucker like that. 

In 1985 I met Lucy, a young chick over from England, and for the first time since Brian I trusted someone. Sure there had been sex over the intervening years but nothing more then a sort of wham-bam-fuck off. 

She wasn't beautiful but I didn't want beautiful. I'd been in love with beauty and beauty had broken my heart. Lucy was as solid as Brian had been ethereal. As unmagical as he was lovely. All substance, no image. I needed that. We lasted almost four months. 

When she found out she was pregnant we decided it would be a bad idea to get back together. I would be a fucking lousy husband and a worse dad. 

We named the baby Katherine Vivian and Lucy took her back to England. I never understood why people got homesick. Since then my life has been more normal then ever before, working in clubs, staying on the straight and narrow as much as I am actually capable of. 

When I saw Kate at the airport six months ago, when her mother sent her back, I almost couldn't believe it. She looks more like me then she does her mother. Acts more like me too. Maybe my temper was more inherited then shocked like I'd always thought. She looked fucked, of course, like everyone on heroin. I made an effort, I really did, I think she did too. But I'm a useless motherfucker and I fucked it. Eventually she'd had enough of my shit and left like everyone does in the end. 

I don't deserve a second chance but I'm more grateful then I ever have been for anything. Not just Kate back, but Mark along with her... 

~ 

My train of thought was interrupted as the door behind me creaked open. Kate mumbled but didn't wake up. 

Mark stood behind me, resting his arms on my shoulders. 

"Come on Curt, she's fine, you need sleep too." He was right, I knew he was right. We were both completely stuffed, it hadn't been an easy time. We took shifts, looking after her. He had held Katie's hair off her face as she puked and retched, calmed her down when she was screaming, treated her like an adult in her moments of clarity. 

Once, it might have been yesterday or the day before, I've lost track, I stood in her doorway. They didn't know I was there. Katie was sitting up, her knees crossed with her elbows on them, chin in her hands, Mark sitting on the edge of her bed. 

"Are you gay?" she'd asked him. Mark just shrugged. "My dad is. Mum's the only woman he's ever loved." Kate had sounded almost proud. I smiled and left before they noticed me. What a fuckin pair. God I loved them. 

"Curt, please get some rest." Mark sounded concerned. I looked back at Kate then nodded. We curled up together in my bed, far too exhausted to consider fucking. Mark shrugged his shirt off and rested against me, his scruffy buzzcut rubbing against my cheek like coarse velvet. I could feel his ribs, I'd have to see that both him and Kate got some meat on their bones. Skinny, lanky, awkward Mark, with faint acne scars on his cheeks and more worrying scars on his arms. Mark, with a sardonic, too-intelligent grin and a cutting tongue. A vocabulary even worse than mine and an encyclopedic knowledge of heroin withdrawal. 

Mark. 

Some things are better than ivory and gold. 


	4. Part three - Katie

I grabbed the coffee jar and spooned a generous amount into my mug. Thank god some of my addictions are legal.  
"Go back into your room, get dressed and I'll make you breakfast." Dad ordered me. I love my dad, I do, but the day I let him order me around is the day I blow my brains out.  
"I'm dressed, and I'm not hungry."  
"You're not dressed for school, and you're too thin." He put some bread in the toaster.  
"Since when are you Carol fucking Brady?" I put sugar in my drink. "I'm not wearing that revolting uniform and since when do you care what I do or don't eat?"  
"Put your fucking school clothes on!" he snapped. I took my coffee and left the kitchen. I was going to behave more this time, I was in no hurry to go back to the streets, and I'm sure they're even less fun without heroin.  
I sadly kicked off my chunky shoes, exchanged my dark maroon jeans for the pathetic plaid skirt, my comfy black jacket and K8E teeshirt for the stupid stupid blazer, let my hair out of it's plait and into a headache of an alice band. I hate my school clothes.  
I left the makeup on. My dad may be a fucking crazy psycho fairy, but he's never been a hypocrite, and if he upbraided me for too much eyeliner then I would smack his head in.  
"Sit. Eat." By the time I got back to the kitchen/dining room Mark was awake. I liked Mark, and I was happy my dad had someone. But they certainly didn't hide their feelings and it was something I liked to tease.  
"If you want me to eat then don't make me vomit." I said with a grin. I didn't mind really, and even though Dad and I were still fighting the house had gotten a kind of harmony. I felt like I belonged to a family.  
Dad aided Mark in the buttoning of his shirt then sat him down next to me at the table.  
"You too. Both of you need to eat."  
"Carol fucking Brady." I repeated. Cooking was not a much-practised skill and everything in our kitchen was easily made, so I chowed down on toast, an apricot and another coffee.  
"Want a lift to school Kate?" Mark asked. I screwed my face up.  
"Nah, s'ok. I'll get a cab." After I was off 'skag' as Mark called it, the three of us had taken a few days off to get adjusted to life. But now it was time for me to brave my schooling and education once more.  
Anyone who says being fourteen is wonderful is a cunt. Whoops, talking like Mark will get me smacked. Not that I was ever well-spoken. School was probably created by whoever said fourteen was wonderful. Going back was more then enough punishment for my trangressions.  
"Well well well, Return of the junkie." It's not really school that makes me sick. It's the dickheads that inhabit it.  
"I don't want to have to give you head trauma, Valmont. Oh wait, yes I do." I tried to ignore him as he sat on my desk. I actually wanted class to start for once.  
"How come you came back, Vivian? Did you run out of money and no-one wanted to buy your drug-fucked body for sex?"  
He knew how much I hated him calling me that. There was another Kathryn in the class so my name on the roll was Vivian. Dad named me after Oscar Wilde's son, but we're not going into how fucked up my father can be. I've never used it by choice, or Katherine for that matter. I am Katie, hear me roar.  
Before I could reply Sebastian-the-revolting-leach Valmont was distracted by someone stealing his wallet.  
"Get out of it Blaine!" he said good naturedly.  
"Welcome back Katie. You staying for good this time?" I'd only been going to the school for a few months before I took off. But I really, really was going to try this time.  
"Yeah, I'm back. Nice hair." He'd bleached his hair and it suited him.  
"Thanks. Hey, if you're off that hard shit does that mean you're finally going to be a customer?" Blaine was the school dealer, supplier of good quality pot to New York's elite adolescents.  
Sebastian stood up with a sigh.  
"You substance abusers bore me."  
"Valmont, everything bores you."  
"Come on Vivian, you know that's not true. I find some things very interesting."  
He'd bedded nearly every girl in the school and wanted me to be the next notch. But I wasn't so easy a catch.  
"Don't call me Vivian, shithead." I gave him a charming smile as the bell clanged. Another school day.

"You look like my cousin Nina." Mark informed me. I was back in my normal clothes, watching MTV until I could go meet my friends in the coffee shop we basically kept in business. They'd accepted me back without a lecture, for which I was grateful. I'd sometimes crashed at their houses after I'd run away, but not recently.  
"Is that a good thing?"  
"Most certainly. She was a gothic kinda bird, and she had hair like yours too."  
"You haven't kept in touch with your family?"  
"Nope. Clean break." Mark looked sort of sad for a second before brightening. "Anyway, got a new family now don't I?"  
"Yeah." I smiled. One fucked up nutso family but certainly a family.

"Be still my beating g-spot." I stubbed out my cigarette and watched as Scott walked past the coffee shop window.  
"It's so cute, how you have a crush on him." Ryn smiled. "Like something out of a Sweet Valley High novel."  
Ryn was the Kathryn that meant I was Vivian at school. She was just as caustic and delinquent as me but she only acted that way when the adults weren't watching and as a result had a lot less grief from the school then I did. I thought she was a slut, she thought I was junkie scum and we got along great.  
We were sitting at a table with Deedee Truitt, the third member of our trio. None of us were used to having female friends as we viewed most of our gender with contempt. Deedee didn't go to school, she worked at one of the clubs my father performed in, which is how we met.  
"It's not cute, it's pathetic." She informed us. "He's obviously a homo, and you could get any guy you wanted Kate. Either talk to him or get over him."  
"Why do you think he's gay?" I queried. Sexy Scott was my weak spot, transforming me from sardonic teen to a pile of mushy goo. I thought he was the cutest thing since, well, ever, and I felt sorry for his name. Going through life with the surname Wild was bad enough, I couldn't imagine having Evil instead. Of course, I wouldn't mind it as my name if I acquired it by marriage…  
"Oh please. That outfit? He's wearing makeup." She was baiting me, setting me off on a tangent to get me ranting about glam and sexuality. My father and I shared a weakness for glitterboys. I guess Mark did too when you think about it, which I don't, because no-one likes to think of their Dad having sex, with anyone.  
"Hump him dump him." Ryn offered, sipping her iced tea. To her, men were just a cheap alternative to vibrators. Half the time I agreed with her, but somehow I've got a romantic streak.  
"Careful Kathryn." I teased. "Otherwise I'll blackmail you with those photos of you and Gavin Strick."  
"You know, you really should try your hand at that stuff. You'd be good at blackmail. And I wish you'd let me clean up your image at school."  
"Nah, I like being the bad grrrl." I lit another cigarette. Life was good. I'm glad I chose it.


	5. Part four - Tommy

He looked different but exactly the same, I can't explain any better then that. He didn't look older, not much anyway, but sort of grown up. His eyes were older. It was the best haircut I'd seen him with, and I'd seen quite a few – this one was plaitnum blonde and a little longer then 'short', curling behind his ears in little wisps.  
Fuck, he looked amazing.  
He dashed into the emergency room, filling the room with his aura. That's what drew me to him in the first place, you couldn't help looking at him when he was in the room. Curt always had more true charisma then I did. He ran to the receptionist's desk, pressing his palms against the corner of the plastic countertop as if he could push any bad news away.  
"Mark Renton. I was told he was admitted here." He was saying. His voice had a New York lilt to it now. Another figure walked in through the sliding glass doors and my eyebrows moved up an inch and a half.  
She was fucking stunning. Easily as beautiful as Curt, in an unkempt, stained sort of way. Dark hair, darker then Curt's natural color, pulled back off her face and accenting the sharpness of her cheekbones. Her aura was as overpowering as her father's. She couldn't have been anyone's kid but his.  
"Dad?" so I was right. "Is he ok?"  
"Shut up Katie!" he snapped, still pressing the reception staff for information. They told him to sit down and wait for a doctor. Real clever. Curt Wild had never sat and waited for anything, especially not when he was emotional. "Just fucking tell me what the fuck's happened to him? Is he ok? What fucking room is he in?" he shouted. The nurse told him to sit down again. The girl, Katie, leant over and grabbed a clipboard from behind the counter, read the information on it and grabbed her Dad's arm, running down the hall. Her father's daughter for sure.  
I got up from my seat in the corner and followed then down the hallway. It's funny how the past can come back and haunt you.

"Jesus fucking Christ. Mark?" Curt stopped in the doorway, looking down at the figure on the bed. He looked pretty fucked, that's for sure. Big scrape down one cheek, black eye, stitches on the side of his head. Right arm in a sling. Run in with a bus. "Mark?"  
"Excuse me, you can't just barge in here -" a doctor came in and began to scold. Then she seemed to remember that these people were in total shock and fear. She started again in a softer tone of voice. "Are you the family?" They both nodded. "He's going to be alright, just a bad concussion. We'd like to keep him overnight, you're welcome to stay here with him. He's not too coherant when he's awake."  
"Oh, that's not the injury, he's always like that." The girl quipped, obviously relieved. The doctor smiled.  
"I'll come back later to check on him, we'll move him to another room soon as one's available." She left.  
Curt let out a huge sigh. "Don't you fucking scare me like that again Mark, not ever, you hear me?" He knelt next to the bed and ran a finger down the sleeping man's cheek. "You had me so fucking terrified. I thought all this must have been too good to be true, that it was over." Was Curt crying?  
"I'll go get us some coffee." Katie said with a gentle pat to her father's shoulder, leaving the two of them alone. I moved away from the door as she walked through it.  
I followed her as she waited in the line for the instant coffee in the emergency room waiting area, as she got impatient and went in search of another source, as she wandered the corridors until she found a machine with no queue. This area of the hospital I was familiar with, I spent more hours here then I had anywhere else that I could remember. Seemed sort of fitting in the end that Curt's daughter ended up here. Poetic justice, sins of the fathers, all that garbage. I hated her because she was beautiful and healthy and so alive, like her Dad.  
She dug in her pocket for change and dropped it in the machine, pressing the buttons for her order. Nothing happened.  
"Stupid thing!" she kicked it with one small booted foot. Nothing happened. "Work!" she had an English accent. I wasn't surprised. Fate had called actors from the world over for this drama apparently.  
"You have to hit the panel." Another voice told Katie. She whirled around, startled. Like a little frightened rabbit. Kids today were so fragile, so drab. If the kids at my concerts back then were jewels, the generation now was the tarnish.  
"Oh, thanks." Katie said, embarrased. I could understand why. The woman's makeup was run, it was obvious she had been crying for a long time.  
"No problem. My name's Shannon, what's yours?" she asked as they waited for the paper cups to fill.  
"Kathrine, but everyone calls me Katie."  
"You don't seem sick."  
"Oh, I'm not - My, uh, well I'm not sure what he is but anyway, Mark didn't come home and then we got a call saying he was here."  
"Oh my. Is he alright?" Shannon asked, concerned.  
"Yeah, the doctor said he'd be ok." The second cup filled but Katie made no move to leave. "So why are you here?" her voice was almost afraid. It was obvious that the woman wasn't here for anything good.  
"My son.." she started, then broke down crying. I couldn't watch her upset, I just couldn't. Fuck the stupid notion of not letting my life overlap his in any small way ever again, my wife was upset and that's all I cared about at that second.  
"Shannon." I said softly as I hugged her. She leant against my chest, her sobs getting louder. Christ, the shit this woman has put up with from me, the least I can do is be her human hankie sometimes.  
"Hey, I know who you are.." Katie started, then trailed off, recognising the knowledge as insignificant. "What's wrong with your son?"  
I couldn't meet her eyes. "They don't know. You'd better get back to your dad."  
"Oh, he's ok. She said flippantly, then became serious again. "How old is he?"  
I knew she meant Josh. "Fifteen. Why do you ask?"  
"I had to be in hospital once, years ago." She had a manner about her that reminded me of her dad, of saying everything she was thinking. I could almost hear an echo down the years 'but now I'm on the methadone…' "It's horrible to be in a place like this when you're a kid."  
Shannon nodded. "We stay with him as much as we can, but he doesn't get many visitors. We're from Seattle, and his friends are all still there. We came looking for treatment, but no-one knows.." her voice trailed off again. Poor Shannon. My poor, poor Shannon. Although it was unrelated I felt like my own past was the root of the pain my family felt now.  
"I'll come see him." Katie offered. An angel in ripped jeans. Josh would have no trouble in believing that concept, his saints all wore the same uniform. "What's his name?"  
"Joshua Hazelbrooke." I told her. "You really should get back to your family, Kate. If you did come see him that would be wonderful." I smiled at her. She smiled back. God, so much like her dad. "And Katherine ..."  
"I don't see why he needs to know." She picked up the coffee and started walking down the hall. "I'll come see your son tomorrow, Mr Stone."


	6. Part five - Katie

Katie's journal

  
Life sucks.  
That's pretty profound, isn't it? But that's how I feel right now. It sucks, big time. Right now I have too much to think about. Isn't life supposed to get simpler when you clean up and move home? I've been cutting so many classes I might as well quit altogether. Not to mention that Mark's still really weak and Dad's all stressed about him and I've got this huge whopping secret I can't tell him and they still don't know what's wrong with Josh and it's just all FUCKED.  
Ahem.  
It's been three weeks since Mark's accident and he's not doing so well, he gets awful headaches and his stitches keep tearing out and he sleeps about 17 hours a day. Dad doesn't cope with being powerless so well, he's prowling like a caged tiger. That makes my next problem sort of easier I guess. I'm not going to give him any more grief by telling him what I found out the night Mark got hit. There's no point.  
Josh is a real honey. I kept to my word and went to see him the next day. His dad says I look like _my_ dad, which is sort of freaky because Josh looks a lot like Tommy. He told me to call him that, Tommy. Makes it easier, because if I called him Mr Stone or Brian or anything it would remind me who he was in relation to Dad and all. When he's 'Tommy' he can be just Josh's dad to me sort of thing.  
Anyway, what I was saying is that I look like my father and he looks like his, which makes us both feel sort of freaked out sometimes, as if we're the sequel. Fuck that. I'm going to make my own mistakes, not repeat my Dad's. And Josh and I haven't even kissed yet. I stress the yet.  
Josh is really sweet, and not too sick most of the time. Just really tired and weak. I know _that_ feeling, it's like that when you're on junk too long. But he says it's getting worse, and I can tell he's scared. LIFE SUCKS.  
I feel a little better when I say that, as if I've found some universal truth. Life sucks.  
But I'm still glad I chose it.

  
I got a job, to keep me out of the way of Mark while he's recuperating and Dad while he's pacing, and to discourage them from wondering where I am when I go up to the hospital for hours at a time. I go every day, sometimes twice if I cut morning classes. Shannon knows I wag school to visit her son but she never says anything. I think she's just glad there's someone else to come and give him a reason to wake up at all.  
I work at the Herald, it's kind of boring but not too bad. I'm getting really good at making coffee and photocopying. Sometimes I even get to go on field work with one of the journos. The editor likes me, says I've got a good work ethic. That almost makes me laugh, because my history teacher says I have the worst work ethic she's ever seen.  
It's almost Christmas, on top of all the other shite. I have no idea what to get Mark, or Dad, Josh, or Ryn, or anyone else. Fucking hell, what I need right now is a big hole to crawl into and die. Or some heroin.

Went to see Josh this afternoon. He was watching a movie on his laptop, a real snazzy job his parents bought him to keep him occupied. The movie was a bootleg CD copy of the new star wars flick. The young Jedi guy, Obi Kenobi, the one with the stupid hair, sort of reminded me of Mark. Same daggy grin. Kinda reminded me of Dad too, if that doesn't sound too insane.  
We watched the movie and then talked for a bit, but he was tired. He's always tired. I guess I didn't believe him when he said it was getting worse, because it shocks me how much weaker he is now then when we first met.  
If they don't find out what it is, if they don't save him, swear to god I'm going back to smack.

Guess I'm not the only one around here with that sentiment right now. Soon as I wrote that last bit Dad and Mark had a big screaming fight. Mark was bitching about his arm hurting again and Dad was trying to think of something to help with the pain. Mark, stupid bugger that he is, suggested a hit. Dad went apeshit. Mark went apeshit right back, saying Dad was a hypocrite and that he knew for a fact that Dad had gone back to herion on three separate occasions. Those two have vocabularies that make _me_ blush, which is pretty scary.  
I'm going to work. Mark's healed up enough for the next stage in the fight to start - the noisy makeup sex. In fact, after work I'll go stay over Ryn's or something. I don't need that pornographic noise on top of all the other fucking stuff.


	7. Part six - Katie

There was a dead body on the hill, hidden by trees. The train zipped past so quickly no-one else saw, or chose to see anyway. It's one of my last memories of England, that sad crumple of clothing and bloated flesh. 

Once, I would have called England home. When I first got to NYC I hated it. Hated my father with his boyish face and life-scarred eyes, hated the American twang of everyone's voice. I wanted to be back home with Mum. 

Now I can't imagine leaving. I hardly even miss Mum anymore, I never really connected with her the way a daughter should. I only think of her the way I think of Pick of the Pops on tv during dinnertime, or people calling cigarettes 'fags'. The way I think of that body on the hill. Part of a world I've left behind. This is my home now. 

I almost miss the numbness. Existing without living. Mark says that's what people do when they don't choose life, even if they never touch heroin. Choosing life means you choose to feel everything. I miss Mark so much it hurts. Hurts long red gashes up my arms. 

It's been three weeks and nothing looks like healing any time soon. I basically live at work, at the hospital. Dad's always drunk, he doesn't even work anymore. 

I knew as soon as I got home, Dad was just sitting in front of the tv staring at nothing. Electrical stuff gives him terrible headaches so I knew it was bad. When he looked at me his eyes were like something out of a movie. Life isn't supposed to be that hopeless. 

"I told him to leave. I wasn't going to let him do that shit when you lived here. I'm not going to have that fucking shit around my little girl." 

The bedroom was trashed, Dad had gone completely bonkers. But right now he was just sitting there. Mark had been shooting up so now he was gone. 

I curled up next to Dad and sobbed. For Josh, for the kid who was too tired to sit up anymore, for Mark, who had chosen life but his head had hurt so much that he had escaped the easiest way he knew, for my Dad, who loved me so much he'd lost his own happiness to protect me, and for myself. We'd cried ourselves to sleep and when we'd woken up the world was dark and grey. It's been raining nonstop. 

I don't even write my journal anymore. There's nothing left to say. When you choose life everything's loud, and I miss my silence. 

Today at work I spilt coffee on my sleeve in the staffroom. Art, the editor, was in there - I'm the only one who gets away with calling him that. He made me take my jacket off, so I wouldn't burn my arms. I couldn't meet his eyes when he grabbed my wrists and looked at the cuts. 

"Kate." He said quietly. "Look at me." I couldn't. Art sighed. "Katherine. Look. At. Me." I looke dup. He had a bittersweet smile on his lips. It made me want to ask if he'd ever done anything like this. "Come in my office." 

He gave me a big black coat to cover my arms, it was really cold because of the rain. Then he opened the drawer on his desk and got something out, a little brooch with a pretty green stone. 

"The person who gave this to me said that it once belonged to Oscar Wilde. You ever read Oscar Wilde, Katie?" I shook my head. "You should. I think you'd like it. Here." He pinned the little brooch on the collar of the jacket. "Whenever you feel so terrible, remember that one day, the whole stinking world will be yours." I smiled. He was a really nice guy. And I don't think he'll ever mention my arms again. 

 

Josh was dozing when I went to see him. He's got a drip in his arm now, the needle in his elbow. My elbow veins are so fucked they couldn't put a needle in if they tried. But the drip was in the soft flesh of Josh's arm fine. I couldn't stop looking at it. I found it an incredibly sexy sight, Josh lying there with his eyelids flickering and a hypodermic in his arm. I'm fucking sick, the think like that. I guess Dad knows what it feels like, because that's why Mark's gone. He understands I'll never have any willpower and he wanted to save me. But it hurts to even think about Mark. 

I picked up the book on Josh's bedside table, he'd fallen asleep reading it from the look of it's position. _My name is Susan Snell_ an account of the Chamberlain Massacre. I always thought that whole story was sort of cool, I totally understand why Carrie did that stuff. God, I really am sick.


	8. Part seven - Curt

No matter how often you get fucked, it never gets any easier. What's that old cliché? Sex, drugs, and rock & roll? I suppose if my heart ever heals and I find someone else I'll lost them through sex. Lost Brianmaxwelltommy to rock & roll, and Mark-. 

It never gets easier. It was almost as bad was when I thought I'd lost Kate. 

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song – if I hadn't lost Brian, would I have fallen in love with Kate's mother? I stumbled, blinded by my tears, into her arms. She comforted me and gave me the greatest gift I've ever had – ripped jeans, cuss-mouth and all. My Katie. 

I have not made my heart a heart of stone. 

That's a lie. I was stony and cold and hard and life was easy. Even when she came over here and we fought and she left, it was easy and cold. Then Mark, the Scots accent and demented intelligence and smile from heaven, the stupid fucker, had to come along and persuade me to choose life, to care again. My heart was not a heart of stone and goddamn it hurts when you lose them. 

When I lost Brian, I needed Lucy. I've lost Mark and my hear keeps screaming that it needs Mark. But surely it is something to have been the best beloved for a little while. I'm glad I chose life and got to feel happy again. If nothing else it got me my Kate in a way we'd never 'clicked' before. I feel like this time I could actually be a worthwhile Dad. 

Which is the worst part. I lost him for her. I can't be angry at her, only at myself for being so reponsible all of a fucking sudden where once I would have let him shoot up in the same fucking room as her. 

Mark, I am most glad I loved thee. 

Kate's looking less depressed lately. I asked her what had changed and she said that Oscar Wilde was getting her through it. I've never been much of a reader, she must have gotten that trait from her Mom. I'm glad she's got something to sustain her, and an addiction to nineteenth century novels never landed anyone in the emergency room from OD'ing. 

God, what if he overdoses? I shouldn't care. It's not my fucking problem if he wants heroin to be his main man. Mark, you've hurt me in a way that no-one but Brian ever has. 

I nurse the barren memory of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung. 


	9. Part eight - Josh

I hate silence. I hear too much of it. When Mom and Dad sat me down to 'have a talk; about how worn out I'd been, they didn't talk much. It was the first time I noticed how sickening absence of sound could be. 

When I moved into the hospital instead of being a day paitient, it almost choked me The thick, angry, waiting-to-die silence. Dad bought me a discman with double-bass-boost but I could still hear it. 

Katie makes it go away. Her laugh drives my death back into the future where it belongs. I only bothered to sit up for her in the end. 

Oh, fuck it. Enough depressing shit. Funny, but I'm a lot happier then I was before I got sick. Then it was all teen-angsty. Too many teenagers sit and mope and waste their lives. I don't know how much more I have so I'm gonna use it. 

I don't consider Katie's pain to be teen angst. Her problem is part inherited, part post-addiction psychosis, and mostly being a fourteen year old girl in the middle of a tornado. I wished I could spin her round and give her piggybacks and make her laugh all the time so often I can't count. She needs so much and yet gives me all she can - 

All right, I'm bored again. It's hard to sustain sadness, that's how humanity survives. I love Katie and her laugh and even if I can't offer her much, my mother is the only adult female in her life and they're close. I hope they'll be there for eachother if I – 

Yikes. Was that angst I just crashed into? Yuk. 

My name's Joshua. I answer to Josh. My friend Adam in Seattle used to call me Maxwell Jr, he's the only friend apart from Kate who knows about the whole thing. Adam and I, we were complete shits as kids. One time they were laying new cement on the footpath near my house, and we stuck Barbie arms and legs in before it dried. They were still there, five years later, last time I saw them. 

I have blondey-brown hair and brown eyes. Freckles on skin that's paler then I'd like. I have my dad's mouth and nose, my mother's hands. Three earrings in each ear, and a tattoo on my shoulderblades that no-one knows about, tiny angel wings. My chin has a long scar on it that only shows up in the cold, the legacy of a fight I had in first grade. 

On my silence-drowning CD player I blast Nine Inch Nails and Orgy, and lately it's been spinning Kate's stuff too, we put little speakers on it so the music could fill the room, instead of just my head, and we lie there listening to Everclear, the Flaming Creatures and Fatboy Slim. 

It all ended, the sleeping silence waiting to die, when Kate came to visit after work one night. I decided I'd had more then enough of my stifling room and asked her to wheel me onto the roof. I missed the stars. I love stars, flight, everything. Weird like that. 

We'd only been up ther a minute when I saw it. 

"Hey, look, a shooting star! Make a wish Kate." I told her. She looked up, closed her eyes and smiled. She's beautiful when she smiles but usually she looks so sad. A light breeze ruffled her hair and coat, the rain had finally stopped but it was still chilly. There was a real sense of magic in the air at that moment. 

Two days later I walked to the end of the corridor and back. 

Now, a month later, I feel almost 100%. They never found out what I had but now I'm in remission. I hope I don't get it again. I'd like to have a chance to 'choose life' as Kate calls it. 

She'll be here in a minute, we're going for a walk. I didn't have a coat so she gave me one of hers (God I love her, she's always so wonderful and caring), there's a brooch on the collar. Kate says she doesn't need it anymore as much as I do. I don't know exactly what she means, but somehow I understand. The thing is, I don't need it either. I'll have to find someone who does. 


	10. Interlude

The man approaches the two teenagers, speaks to the girl as if he knows her. He is young and lanky, with thin arms encased in a threadbare long sleeve t-shirt, a dull grey color set off by spiky red hair that sticks out all angles. 

His face is intelligent, cunning, and imploring for these two children to save him even as his words plead damnation. The girl's eyes are huge in her face, emphasised by dark liner paint, green puddles of sadness. Her mouth twists with the irony of the situation and she shakes her head. 

"No, Mark." Her voice is soft and sad. "I'm not going to give you any money." 

The boy with her views the scene as one might the final shot of a film, the tragic culmination that cannot be affected by spectators. This is not his fight, nor his chance. 

Impulsivley he steps forward, rejecting the boundries the small stained angel has placed on the confrontation. He breaks the tableu and includes himself in it, offering a small trinket to the man. It glints the same color as the girl's eyes. The thin desperate hand of the man accepts the offer wordlessly and after a moment he walks away, too ashamed or upset to stay near them. 

"Why did you do that?" she asks as they continue walking. "He'll just pawn it anyway." 

"I don't think he will." The boy replies. Perhaps things won't be better for his intrusion, but perhaps they will be.


	11. Part nine - Kathryn

"You need a makeover." 

Katie looked up from the salad she was picking at. "What?" 

"Let me be your image-maker. I need a challenge. And you sit around moping all day." 

"That's not true, I'm not so depressed anymore." 

"You're not happy though. C'mon, what have you got to lose?" 

She gave a sly look. "What have you got to gain?" 

"I'm hurt. Can't I just do something nice for a friend?" 

Katie just stared. I gave up. "Ok, fine. I'm going to run for student body president and if you make a turnaround it'll be good for my image. I think a lot of people think it's odd that we're friends." 

"Ryn, I've told you before I like being the bad grrl…" Kate trailed off. 

"Just try it, please?" 

"Oh fine. Turn me into Mary Sunshine." 

*** 

"Well, for school there's the uniform, so we don't have to worry about that. Now, for weekends…." 

We stood in the centre of my favourite shop, my mother's credit cards and my own in my bag. Katie picked up a grey see-through top. 

"Ryn, your style is not my style. I don't want to wear this stuff." 

"You don't have to. We just need to find clothes that suit your lifestyle and make you look nice." 

"My 'lifestyle'?" 

"The humble little rich girl. I've decided that's our angle. You work at that newspaper because you believe in giving back to your community." I put my sincerity up to full. 

Katie looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "How do you do this all the time?" 

"Practice. Now try these on." 

*** 

We went to the coffee shop when we were finished creating her a wardrobe. 

"Go to your doctor and get a prescription for Aropax." I ordered her. 

Katie shook her head emphatically. 

"Ryn, I'm not going on anti-depressants. No way." 

"I didn't say take them silly. Just make them in plain view a few times and no-one will question your turnabout." 

"Anything else Miss Mertueil?" she said mockingly. 

"Be obvious with your money. You're one of the richest students at Manchester and you live like you're poor. Throw a dinner party." 

"You should write a book Kathryn." She looked awed. I smiled and sipped my latte. 

"When's Joshua starting?" now Joshua was someone who looked perfect for Kate's change. Dressed like he was a vampire at a death metal concert but he knew how to act classy. Katie was like a colt before it's broken in – all potential, no training. 

"Two weeks, when he's officially discharged." Her face softened. 

"You guys fucked yet?" 

"It's none of your business and no we haven't." 

"Another thing, before I forget. Stop talking like an extra from _Oliver!_. You don't do it all the time and I doubt you even notice, but you're occasionally slipping out with 'me Mam' and things like that." 

"You're going to turn me into a robot." 

"Only in public, Katherine. And trust me, you'll find life a much easier place." 

*** 

"What are _you_ doing here?" I sat down on my favourite couch, glaring at Sebastian, who was looking through one of the books on art on the table. Katie had gone home and I had done the same. Only to find Valmont there, again. 

"Our parents are out on a date. I came over for some company." He always sounded so bored. 

"I won't fuck you Sebastian. Now, or when hell freezes over." 

"I'll remember you said that when you're begging." 

Damn he annoyed me. I hoped my mother dumped his father very soon so I'd only have to see him at school. 


	12. Part ten - Mark

When you're on junk, you don't have friends. I'm not incapable of caring about people, far from it, but heroin is. It's a selfish lover, demands that you give everything to it and nawt to everyone else. 

Which I'd always been basically fine with. 

I sat on the side of the footpath, like Katie had been the first time I saw her. My fingers flicked around the little brooch the boy had given me. I'd have to tell Curt that Katie had a man. 

Then I remembered, and that fucking hurt. I kept slipping up, thinking Curt this or Curt that. Then it would dawn on me that I'd never have Curt anything ever again. 

The pin of the clasp bit into the ball of my thumb and I swore. You'd think that I'd be used to needle pricks, hey? Nope. They fucking hurt. 

Red blood and the green jewel. Holly and ivy. I knew two sisters called that once. Christmas bairns. 

It was almost Christmas, wasn't it? And as per usual that meant fuckall to me. Coulda meant something with Curt and Katie. 

Motherfucking Christ I'm an idiot. The words for me are so bad even I don't know them. 

I was hungry, and I didn't have enough money to score anyway. Might as well buy some food. I knew I wouldna be able to keep it down though. Food and me had decided finally to give up the charade and go our separate ways. 

I thought about buying some razor blades. I'd seen Katie's arms that first day, I knew it was her deal too. It was mine when I was a kid. All about control as the therapists would say. Putting smack in, taking skin off – it's the same deal. Control. 

Shite I felt out of that by a long shot. 

*** 

I meant to just nick the skin, remind my body who was boss. But when I saw the blood start to flow I wanted to just go for broke. I mean, why not? Nothing left to lose. 

So I did. 

Very carefully I prepared. Sat down ono the floor of the living room, when I'd moved in with Curt and Katie I'd leased my apartment out to a couple of guys who were now letting me crash there. 

Tied a band around my upper arm, a gesture that I could probably perform asleep by now. Turned the TV on, it was old reruns of _All my children_. Then I slit my flesh from wrist to elbow. 

I've always had a soft spot for soap operas. They're all pretty and smooth and clean. One of the birds on this one reminded me of Katie's friend. Katie… wonder it she'd ever go this far. She's like the dogs I used to shoot with Si's air gun – the more it hurts, the more vicious she gets. I'd planned to watch out for her, make sure she never got too down. I'd planned to look out for her Pa too. 

My head started to throb in time with my arm. Didn't hurt too much. How had it ever hurt enough to make everything fall apart? 

I'd always privately considered my attitude to sexuality and fucking to be a good one. I liked girls but I wasn't against the idea of screwing someone of my own gender. Open-minded heterosexuality, subject to change. 

Now I'm as fucked up about that as about everything else. Because the only person I have any interest in shagging is Curt. And if I'm in love with a bloke that would make me basically gay, wouldn't it? Never thought of myself like that. 

The room began to blur and double in my perceptions. Curt, I love you, I know that now. If only I hadn't been so fucking stupid I might not have lost you, because you're better then the junk. 

I was on my back now, the dirty ceiling dimming above me. Of all the times to realise a basic life truth, with seconds left of said life to go. Sounds pretty typical of me actually. For someone sexually uninhibited I'm one bloody idiot when it comes to matters of the heart. 

If only I could have seen him, to tell him I understood everything. The world is so easy to comprehend when an integral part of it's mechanism is coagulating in the carpet. 

"Mark?" 

I knew I was dying when I heard that. Curt wasn't really there. I was hallucinating, in a minute baby Dawn would crawl out of my nightmares to drag me to hell. 

"Mark? Answer me! Oh fuck." Why was he panicing? I wasn't flustered at all and I was the one who dreamed him here. 

"Curt." Christ, was that my voice? I sounded like a comsumptive poet or some cunt like that. "Ah wish ah coulda said goodbye. Love you." 

"Don't say goodbye you fucking motherfucker." I was about to tell him off for being such a rude figment of my imagination but before I could the world went very dark and very quiet. 

*** 

"Mark?" 

I was alive. Christ, I canna even kill myself properly. And Curt was there for real. I hate hospitals. 

"Curt? How'd ye find wair I wis stayin?" 

"Asked around, took a guess." He shrugged. 

"And now we have the sticky situation to end them all." I sat up, realising I was in a hospital gown. "Ahm getting used tae these doss outfits." 

"What the hell were you thinking, Mark?" Curt sounded angry and upset. I decided I must be in hell or purgatory. 

"When in particular?" 

"When you slit your fucking wrists, dickhead!" his voice was getting louder. 

"Ah, then." I felt very cold and small all of a sudden. Why on earth don't hospital gowns have a back? "Aboot how much ah fucking hate smack. Aboot Christmas. Mostly aboot yeself here." Honesty, some cunt once said, is the best policy. 

"I'm taking you home." He sounded like he'd thought about it for a long time. 

"Naw." I tried to smile but it didn't quite work. "We'd drive each other tae murder." 

"Mark –" suddenly he gave up on words and enveloped me in his arms, breathing in that harsh way that means he wants to cry. His hands were shaking against the skin of my back, I think they do that because of the electroshock therapy. 

"Promise me you'll never do that again Mark, promise me right now you fucker." His lips tickled the skin of my throat as he spoke. How can you be so close to someone and miss them so much? 

"Curt, the phrase 'junky's promise' is a cliché fer a reason" I reminded him, my own lips speaking against his hair. I'd forgotten how wonderful it smelt. 

"Don't care. Promise me or I'll kill you myself." 

"Awright, it's a promise." I smiled at him as he sat back, almost a real smile. 

"You're coming back with me. No, I won't argue. We can sort everything out, or not, whatever. You're not going home on your own tonight." 

I grinned. "Has Katie told ye that you're very convincing as a Dad?" 

"Usually she just says 'can I have some money?' and leaves again." Curt said with a resigned sigh. "Is it supposed to be this difficult?" 

"Ah saw her this morning." Christ, has it really only been earlier today? "She's got a man." 

"Really?" Curt shook his head with a resigned half smile that made him look like a tragic angel. "Explains how little she's at home a least. I thought I'd scared her off again. I haven't been dealing so well…" 

"Neither have I." I said redundantly, looking down at the new stitches on my arm. "Help me fight t'all Curt, please? I canna do it alone." 

This time my mouth met his, a hungry, homesick kiss of doomed lovers who are desperate not to lose each other again. In the sterile hospital room I wanted to cry like a big baby. Not hell after all. 

*** 

My shirt had been ruined with the blood so I ended up going home in my jeans and Curt's jacket. Mother to Christ it was freezing, I grew up in the fucking freezer of the planet and I was still shivering. We huddled together in the cab but I wouldn't be honest if I said that was primarily for warmth. 

I hoped I would be clever this time. 

*** 

"Katie?" Curt called, ushering me onto the couch. "See, I told you she's never home." 

"I ne'er would have let her near the junk y'know." 

He sighed. "Yeah, I know. But it's fucking horrible being a good father. You gotta be all responsible and shit." 

"I'm scared." I admitted. "Relinquishing junk has never been my talent." 

"Kate puked on you, this is just a chance to return the favour." He hugged me again, a crushing protection from the big bad world. "Now lie down and I'll make you some soup. You like the mushroom best, right?" 

"Fuck the soup." I held him equally tightly. "I need you near me." 

"Oh alright." Curt said as if it was a big favour. Ah, the makeout game. We almost seem better at that then actually fucking. Almost. 

This was certainly another interesting development in the life of Renton. 


	13. Part eleven - Shannon

I loved him from the first second I saw him and never stopped. When he treated everyone like dirt I loved him. When he hit the bottom of his decadent spiral I loved him. And when he'd had enough and stopped all the games, I loved him. I'll always be his. 

Mandy despised me, she thought I was a strange twit. I was, I am. I despised her because she had him. Later, I hated Curt. I cried my heart out when I thought he had stolen when I wanted so badly. And later still, I gloated, because I was still there so many years after they were gone. All right, so he didn't love me. That never made me give up. 

I knew that one day he would. 

That night, after the concert, when the journalist asked about the Maxwell Demon link to Tommy Stone, it all ended then. He wanted to go get drunk, he was so worried about people finding out. We sat at the bar and he stared into his drink and then scrubbed his face with his hands. 

"I've been lying so long I can't even remember what I was before I started." He said, in his real voice, the clipped, heartbreaking accent that made me love him all over again. He never used his 'rockstar' voice again. "And now they're all tumbling down and I'm going to get tangled." 

"It'll be all right. It's always all right." I reassured him. 

"Why do you put up with me Shannon? You've never once gotten angry at me, no matter how badly I fuck it up." 

"Do you want the truth?" 

"Yes. Not more lies." 

"I love you." The words were surprisingly easy to say. I always thought they would stick in my throat and choke me. 

He looked at me, almost as surprised by the confession as I was. 

"What?" 

"Always. That's why I put up with you. You could kill me and I'd still come back to you." 

"Shannon – " 

"I have to go." I picked up my purse and left the bar. Why'd I have to go and spoil it? If I'd just kept my fucking mouth shut I could have stayed near him – 

"Shannon!" he called. I turned. It was pouring rain and I had started to cry. I must have looked a sight. 

"I'm sorry." It couldn't fix anything but I had to say it. 

"Don't be." 

And we kissed. 


	14. Part twelve - Josh

I had the dream again last night. 

It's always the same. The hands, pushing, shoving, controlling. They're the first ones. Then the other hands, the hungry hands, grasping for me, trying to own a piece of my soul. It's not really me they're after. It's him. 

No-one can hear me screaming in the dream. "I'm not him! Can't you see I'm not him?" 

Kate's there too, but she's not really Kate. And she's watching and her eyes are so sad. I scream for her but she never hears. I don't know what the images are. They're not my memories. I think they might be his. 

Sometimes I dream in starlight. She tells me the world has changed because I am made of ivory and gold. A thought that isn't my own wonders why she bothered saying it, the journalists can't hear. Then we kiss and it's like a flash fire laced with the alcohol we've just drunk. The cameras flash and Kate scowls. Sweetheart, didn't you know it was all for their benefit? 

I lean out the window and watch her walk down the slick nighttime street below. I'm crying. Oh Kate, my Kate, don't leave. But those aren't the words that come out. 

"Go on, piss off then! Go back to your wolves, your junky twerps, your bloody shock treatment….and fuck you too!" 

 

Sometimes I dream in black and white. The people's eyes are dead, their reaching fingertips limp. That's when her eyes are sad. I spot her in the crowd and I want to die. The sparkles and glitter have left on their spaceship and my magic has turned ugly. 

It's not me. I will not be him. I'll fuck up my own life, thanks very much. I can't help the past. I can't kiss her scars closed. I can't make the right words come out when I call from the windowsill. All I can do is leave it behind. 

So what the fuck is this goddammed dream? Do the fates want me to fix the unfixable? And how do I do that? Is there some destiny my father never fufilled? Bollocks to that, as Kate would put it. A rockstar who fucked up / a popstar who retired isn't any divine calling that I must follow him into. 

When I'm older I'd love to be a writer. Or a teacher. Not a singer, not an actor, not any sort of performer. A writer's characters are controllable, mostly. Maxwell Demon and Tommy Stone nearly overpowered and destroyed my father. I will not give my creations that power. My parent's past doesn't have that power over me. 

Except for the dreams. 

*** 

So after a less then restful night's sleep, I got the chance to start at my new school in the worst possible frame of mind. It helped that Kate was there but not much. 

Its meaningless rituals and words washed over me. In English the class studied Dorian Gray. Kate was quite passionate about it, which I thought was sweet. The book unnerves me a bit though, Dorian's set up to fall because of his origins and parentage. I won't give destiny the satisfaction of failing. I will not fall as he fell. 

Hello angst, my old friend. You're part of the past, stop trying to claim my future, you have no place there yet. Adam was wrong, I was never Maxwell Jr. I am Josh, with my own dreams and fears and secrets. I might fall too. But it shall be _me_ tumbling down, not him. Kate Wild is my beloved, not the daughter of his lover. We are ourselves, the equals not the sequels. 

So why won't the dreams stop?


	15. Part thirteen - Curt

I'm not sure I can handle this. 

He's my other half/soul mate/ whatever garbage you want to call it. I'm more sure of it every moment, and that alone is fucking scary. The new skin under sunburn is more sensative to touch, and Brian burnt so much off it's almost too much sensation to survive now. 

I'm getting too old to orchestrate heroin withdrawals. Well, not too old. I've never been someone talented at the stuff I have to worry about now. I've got a daughter who never tells me anything and steals my razor blades. A lover who needs me as much as I need him. When Mark and I lie in bed together in the early morning we hold eachother tightly, as if we can merge and never be apart again. 

He's already hurt me, it's terrifying to rely on someone, need someone so totally when you know how it can feel. 

He's gone back to work. I've told him he doesn't need to, I have enough money to support him for a million years. The reply is always the same – 'you still work'. I'd hardly consider performing work, but it's a fair point. 

And so life has become like a strange late night sitcom, surreal and beautiful in it's twisted everydayness. We wake up clutching eachother, kissing and fucking as the city comes to consciousness. I force Kate to eat a poptart with her coffee, she swears at me and then eats two. She leaves for school, Mark for work. In the mornings I wander, this city fits me like a second skin and I like to just exist in it. I try to be at home around four, Kate dashes in, changes, and leaves again. Tells me it's to her job, but Mark says she's got a boyfriend. I wonder why she hasn't introduced us. Perhaps she's ashamed of me. 

I go to work and perform the litanys of pain and joy someone once named songs. There's always been a small audience, in the last few years it's grown. The world isn't as lost as it was fifteen years ago, but it's still as hurt. We set out to change the world and perhaps I'm still changing it without knowing. I offer those souls who come to see me a thumbnail sketch of all the bittersweet feelings I've lived. Perhaps they need it more then I realise. 

Sometimes I daydream about moving to some small town utopia out in the middle of the country. Kate could be a cheerleader and wash her hair occasionally. Maybe Mark or I could even join the fucking PTA. Then I laugh at my own sillyness. Me leave the city? Mark on the PTA?! Kate a cheerleader?!? The small town ideal would be anything but ideal to us. The cracks in our mirror make our image more defined and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

*** 

Kate's last day at school before Christmas vacation. It's put her in great spirits, she hardly used any malice when I told her to eat breakfast. She reminded us not to miss her school concert that night. It seems so unlike her to participate in curricular activities, much less extra-curricular. 

Mark smiled. 

"What're you doin for it?" 

"Now that would be telling." Kate replied with a secretive smile. 

"Well it'll be fucking radge I'm sure." Mark grinned. Fuck I love his smile. It's like a megawatt bulb in his face. I wanted to jump him right then and there. Katie must've noticed my expression because she rolled her eyes very theatrically and got up from the table. 

"I'll be going now." She said, taking her bag with her. 

Eventually Mark left too, after I had taken a long taste of that smile I loved. 

*** 

I hate going to things at Katherine's school, I don't fit in there despite the god-knows-how-many-illions in my bank account. Kate didn't either until recently when one of the other girls took Kate under her wing. It's so… schizo. This old money/new money thing. Utterly nuts. I always feel stained there, like everyone's staring. Usually, they are. 

Mark seemed to get off on it, he was having a great time. I elbowed him in the ribs, he did it right back, with an evil grin at me. 

I stuck the tip of my tongue out at him in a lewd gesture and told him to behave. "Katherine doesn't need a scandal, k?" 

"Aw." He said with a pout, but he behaved. 

*** 

First presentation of the night was an abstract poetry piece. Complete bullshit. I moved my hand up Mark's thigh, keeping my face neutral. He slapped it away. I moved my hand up again, he slapped it away. I started to do it a third time, he grabbed my hand and moved it onto his crotch. We collapsed into a fit of quiet laughter. I was glad we were up the back. 

Second was a piano/flute duet with Katie's friend Kathryn on the flute and a fair-haired guy on piano. It was technically near perfect, but completely passionless. As the first song finished the boy grabbed Kathryn's hand to bow, I notcied she snatched it away as soon as possible. I'd have to ask Kate if they'd gone out or something. Sexual tension, unresolved or broken up, is the only thing that can spark like that. The second piece they performed was far better, music's only good when every tear and every smile comes through. A true artist puts nothing of himself into his work but emotions aren't people's things to own. They control you, not the other way around. Whatever these two felt for eachother, not the specifics of who they were but the archetype feeling, that was what made the song good. 

Next a ballet dance that Mark pretended to sleep through, flopping against my shoulder. Then Kate came onstage. 

"This was written a while back. People probably know it from Nirvana." Cheers came from the student section of the audience. Kate laughed before her voice changed and she began the song. 

I'd never heard her sing before. Everything she'd ever done to fuck up her body was in her voice. My waifish fourteen year old daughter turned an already sad piece into a fucking torch song. When church windows shatter they should sound just like that. It was tearstained cheeks on a pillow, gravel and cream. Her voice was rotted honey. 

We didn't stay for the rest of the concert. When we could wrench our eyes away from the stage after the song ended the two of us went around the back to find her. 

"That was…whoa." Mark managed. "Better look out, she might steal your gigs. Then you'd have to stay at home every evening with me." His arm slipped around my waist. 

"WTF is with you? Did you take horny pills or something?" I asked him. 

"No drugs for Renton. And are you complaining?" 

"Does it look like I'm fucking complaining?" I walked two fingers up his arm. I got to the crook of his elbow before he moved my hand away. 

"If you keep going, Katie'll have her scandal." He warned. 

*** 

We got around the corner as Kate was coming out the door to the basketball court behind the auditorium. 

"Dad! Mark! Was I ok?" she sounded unsure of herself. 

"Kate, you were great." I assured her. She cracked a grin. 

"Ta Dad. A bunch of us are going to to celebrate. Can I go?" 

"Course you can sweetie. Here's some cash." 

"Thanks Dad. See you guys later." She took in Mark's arm around my waist and his dialated pupils. "Probably tomorrow morning. I'll crash at Ryn's." 

As we were leaving, a pretty-looking boy a bit older then Kate pushed past us. 

"That's him." Mark hissed. "Katie's guy." 

I turned to look at him again. There was something… 

The kids didn't notice us still there. Katie was talking to her friend, unaware the guy was sneaking up behind her. She cried out when he grabbed her and lifted her into the air. 

"Joshua don't do that!" she shrieked. I smiled and turned again, putting my arm around Mark's shoulder. I'd tease Kate about her boyfriend tomorrow. 


	16. Flashback

The hairs on Lucille's temples were graying. She didn't use dye so they stood out against the dark curls left. For not the first time, she felt bone tired. 

"You're going to live with Curt. I can't deal with you anymore." Her daughter looked surprised, like she hadn't expected Lucy to have so much backbone. 

"Let me get this right. You think I'll clean up if I go to live in New York? Mum, I'd probably end up with a cokehead for a best friend over there." 

"I can't keep doing this Katherine. I give you more pocket money then you can spend so you blow it on a heroin addiction. I cut your money and you're selling your stuff. I don't know how to help you Kath." 

"Don't call me that." The girl scowled, scratching her thin elbow. "I don't think living with my father will help me. I don't think you understand that I DON'T WANT HELP!" her junk-dulled eyes flashed with their old fire for a second. "You're going to palm your only child off on some burt-out mentally unstable shirtlifter who live on another fucking continent? And that's gonna HELP me?!" 

"Well it'll certainly help me!" Lucy screamed back. "I tried to do you right Kath – Katie. I tried to be a good Mum. But you're his kid in the end. And maybe he can tell you how to win." 

"Fuck you. I'm your fucking kid Mam, I've never met the shithead. Don't say I'm his in the end. What I am is what YOU MADE ME!" Kate slammed the door as she left. 

"What happened to my baby?" Lucy wondered in a defeated whisper. 

*** 

Katherine stalked down the street, rubbing her elbows. 

"Don't even know the fucker." She muttered. "don't know him, never even seen him Get rid of me that easy can she?" she blinked back angry tears she wouldn't admit to crying. "I hate this fucking country anyway. I'll run away in New York and get a bus… maybe I'll go see LA. Or Washington, I'll go fuck a senator. Show her whose kid I fucking am…" 

She turned and went inside the library, its quiet soothing her ragged nerves. A kid was sitting in her usual chair but a well-aimed glare took care of that. Katie sank into the seat with a stack of old Birdland comics, intending to spend the hours until closing time immersing herself in a world that was kind to outcasts instead of palming them off across the earth. 

"Oh fuck this shit." She couldn't concentrate, and the images kept blurring. It was mascara in her eye, of course. Kathy Wild (who preferred to be called Kate) never cried. She threw the comic aside and went over to the internet terminals, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. 

**Curt Wild** brought up a few dozen pages but the first four she clicked on didn't work. With more paitience then she was known for, Kate remained calm. The next link she tried took her to 'The Rat Cage'. 

"Blah blah Michigan blah 1970's blah blah… hmmm…." Kate moved the cursor over the hotlinked words **Brian Slade** and opened a new window. With a mild twist of satisfaction she noted that the previously pristine keyboard and mouse now had makeup smudges on them. She skimmed the rest of her father's life story. "blah blah clubs in New York… I didn't know he still worked." A blurry .jpeg of the page creator, a man in his twenties, standing next to a terminally bored looking wiry man of indeterminate age followed. 

"Ug. It's gotta be unhealthy for a girl's dad to have groupies." Katie decided. She changed windows to the Brian Slade information. "Hel- _lo_ therapy." She scrolled quickly past the lagre scan of a newspaper snap showing her father with long blonde hair caught in a tender kiss with another young man. She read the short synopsis, chewing on her lower lip, oblivious to the damage it was doing to the lip gloss. "Whereabouts unknkown eh? Probably dead. No-one fucks out on a Wild and lives." 

Kate stopped, thinking for the first time that she's always thought of herself as a Wild. Her mother wasn't, but Kate has always just… 

Perhaps living with her dad for a while would be interesting. 


	17. Part fourteen - Josh

"So what didja think of my singing?" Kate asked, sitting on my lap, one arm around my shoulders, swinging her feet. I could smell the alcohol on her breath, she wasn't drunk but getting there. 

"See this apple?" I reached over and grabbed one off the buffet. "You know when you find an apple and it's perfect? Shiny and red and it looks like the original apple of sin in Eden? Then you bite it, and there's a big bruise and it's decayed from the inside? That's your voice, my Kittykate." 

She smiled, touching her forehead to mine. 

"You and your words. How do you make them dance like that?" she took the apple off me. "Back in England we made a bong out of an apple once. Where's Blaine?" she looked around. 

"Oh no." I took the apple and put it back on the table. "No pot for you sweetie." 

"Mark kicked heroin and he has pot." Kate scowled, staring off into middle distance as if she was reading her train of thought from the air. "Kathryn calls me a junkie. I don't use _anything_ anymore.. everyone uses drugs except me." 

"Oh, you don't use anything?" I took the bottle of white wine out of her hand and swigged a mouthful. "What's this then?" 

"Yummy!" she giggled, leaning against me again. We were in one of the hotel rooms we'd paid for, there were five I think. Twenty snobs-in-training getting ripped. Gotta love the holiday season. 

"I'm used to cask stuff." Kate revealed. "I think I might be getting a bit tipsy." 

"Really? Didn't notice." I smiled. She laughed again. 

"I'm gonna go wash my face. Clear my head." She jumped off my lap, sauntering over to the bathroom. After thiry seconds she came back in, looking kind of nervous. Her teeth knawed on her lower lip. Then she seemed to reach an inner peace, her face changing as she walked towards the door to the next room over, one of the empty ones. 

Her eyes were like that phrase that's almost a cliché - _come hither_. She looked at me like that and left the room. 

I followed after her. There wasn't any other choice I wanted. 

*** 

Kate was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking apprehensive again. 

"Joshy?" she asked. "We're cursed, aren't we? Even this. We can't win. We're ghosts, playing the same scenes over forever. And it wasn't even our sin." 

I sat down next to her. 

"Do you have dreams? Dreams where…" 

"We're not really us? I don't get it. I mean, it's not like they're dead, so we can't be reincarnations. And I don't think they'd even get along if I got over my fear and introduced them already." Kate sighed. "This is just history repeating. Fuck!" she began to twist the fingers of her right hand. 

"History repeating?" I searched the memories that aren't mine. "I saw you for the first time when you sauntered into my hospital room and told me that waiting room vending machines suck, not when you were jumping around on a stage. You're not anyone but yourself. Ok?" I hugged her, she held me close. 

"Oh I love you. That's me saying that." We stayed like that for a few minutes. "And you know what?" she went on. "Fuck it. If we end up in the same tailspin, then so be it. This is one situation I'm willing to borrow." 

We kissed again and she lifted her dress over her head. Her skin was so smooth and pale, tight over her small body. I reached out to touch her, catching sight of my fingernails. Scott at school had painted them dark blue. I liked the way it looked. Kate's skin felt so soft. I was afraid I'd bruise her, but I knew that she's stronger then anyone would credit her. 

"God you're sexy." She told me, ridding me of my shirt. 

"I'm a scrawny, just-out-of-hospital, gothed-out punker kid with no tan." 

"Like I said." She smiled again. "Sexy." 

"Let's see if the curves of our lips can rewrite history." I suggested. Katie laughed and pushed me down onto the bed. 


	18. Part fifteen - the night before Christmas

~~~ 

Christmas Eve - morning 

~~~ 

The road whipped underneath the tires, wet and darkly slick with rain that that preceded them. It was one, perhaps two in the morning, the highway lonely in a way that has nothing to do with lack of company. 

Eyelashes blinked down in a tawny curtain as the boy stared out at the black. He wondered how many hours it had been since he'd spoken. If he ever would again. 

Inside the van was a bubble of light in the unrelenting dark of the world outside. The two girls in the front seats were arguing again about what CD to play. He'd been sitting up there before, but he'd climbed over into the back to get some rest. 

He looked away from the darkness outside down to his hands in his lap. The fingers were resting lightly on a very worn copy of 1984, the page edges soft from repeated journeys by the same fingertips. There was a bruise on the middle finger of the right hand, yesterday he'd been writing, holding the pen so tightly the knuckle had purpled, the damage done before he noticed. 

He was leaning against the back of the van, his shoulderblades resting against the doors in a way that would have scared any mother that has ever warned a child not to rest on car doors. 

The conversation from the front seats came into focus, switching from sounds to words as he made himself concentrate. 

"Can we turn this shite off?" a clipped voice, the girl with the huge eyes and thin face. 

"Please. And since when did you talk in Scot's slang?" 

"Picked it up from Mark. If you hate it why do you have it?" 

"Got it free." the other girl was more sculpted, smooth and poised and out of place in the van. They were going to stay with her cousins, and a plane had been outvoted in favour of a friend's car, even though none of them were old enough to drive. The sizable bribe three wealthy teens can generate dealt with any problems in that area. 

"Oh please please don't tell me you slept with Chris Gaines." 

"Ok, I won't." 

The boy smiled slightly, tuning back out. Neither of them would admit it but they had a good influence on eachother. Although, hadn't someone once said all influence is bad? 

Feeling mildly motion sick and drowsy, he closed his eyes. The earphones by his foot were soon blasting very very loud Smashing Pumpkins into his ears, fighting off actual sleep. The boy hated sleep, for him it equated with illness, death, and disturbing dreams. 

But his eyes were heavy. 

~~~ 

The house smelt just as he had expected it to smell – gourmet food, expensive clothing and baby shit. Ugly plastic action figures covered the polished wood floor. 

He smiled and nodded when he met the adults, then escaped to his allotted bedroom as the girls went to explore the pool outside and the rooms downstairs. His fingers traced the patterns on the front of his notebook, a collage of influences. A cartoon drawing of a girl playing hopscotch on the edge of a cliff, another little girl dressed in a bunny suit holding a mallet, a film still from Metropolis, a tag from a pair of Dr Martens boots, and a rough sketch the boy had done himself of _the crow_ that was better then he believed it was. 

He opened the book with a contented sigh and began to write, losing track of time until a cough made him look up and he realised the sunlight in the room was that of midday. 

A blonde toddler was standing in the doorway, her dress torn at the hem and her shoes expensively ugly. 

"I'm 'Lisabeth. You're Joshua." Her voice had a mild lisp to it. "Wanna see my puppy?" 

The notebook shut and returned to it's pocket in the suitcase, he smiled. 

"Ok." 

~~~ 

They walked down the garden between the trees. 

"What happened to your leg?" the tiny child's finger seemed to be grafted to her lower lip, making her voice difficult to understand. 

He looked down at his ankle, the loose skate shorts ending high enough to show off a few inches of pale skin. On the inside of his left ankle the word **demon** cried out in clumsy razor slits, the same handwriting as the spider-scrawl in his notebook. 

"I got cut." he said simply. She nodded, the world too confusing still for her to dispute explinations. 

~~~ 

Christmas Eve - evening 

~~~ 

"I'm dying." Mark groaned. "I think I have a terminal disease. I'll shrivel and wither and rot here and anyone who tries to move mah body will get infected and die too." 

Curt furrowed his brow sympathetically. 

"Sick on Christmas eve. That's gotta fucking suck." Mark just rolled over in bed and covered his head with a pillow. Curt rubbed his back comfortingly and swung his legs out of the bed. 

"You're leaving me to die, you doss cunt. Fine, leave me, don't stay and make my final moments comfortable." 

"You have a cold. I have a gig. If I stay I'll probably catch it off you and no-one will be here to look after us. If I go, I promise to be back by morning and we can spend Christmas day making you feel better, ok?" 

Mark stuck his head out from under the pillow, his skin chalky with fever and hair mussed. "You promise to be back by morning?" 

Curt smiled and kissed Mark's forehead. "I'll bring something nice back for breakfast." 

~~~ 

"What did you ask Santa for?" Elisabeth asked Josh as they returned to the house. Josh shrugged. 

"I didn't. Santa and I don't get along very well." 

"Sometimes Mummy says that if I do bad things Santa won't like me. Did you do bad things?" 

Josh shrugged again. "No, but I get punished anyway." 

Elisabeth sighed sagely. "That happens to me, too. My brother Davey pulled the cats tail and said it was me but it wasn't me it was him." 

"Well I'm sure Santa knows it wasn't you." Josh promised. He smiled at the slightly damp figure sitting by the door. "Hey Kitty Kate." 

"Hey hey. Who's your friend? Cheating on me with a younger woman?" 

"'Fraid so." Josh grinned. "This is Elisabeth. Lis, this is Katie." 

"Hello." The girl said shyly. Katie smiled. 

"Hi Elisabeth. What have you been doing?" 

"I showed Joshua my puppy. You went swimming." Elisabeth replied. Katie looked up at Josh. 

"She's a little hallmark angel, isn't she? Hey, Lis, can you show me where the dining room is? Josh looks like he needs some sleep." 

"Thanks." Josh said exhaustedly. "Hey, Kate?" he called as she walked off with the toddler. 

"Yeah?" 

"Stop by my room tonight… if you want to, that is. You don't have to." 

"Ten ok?" she fluttered her eyelashes. 

"Ten's perfect." He said with a relieved smile. She blew him a kiss and took Elisabeth's hand. Josh watched them go. Katie was good with kids. Who'd've thought it? 

~~~ 

After Curt's set ended he hung around the hotel ballroom, mingling and 'hobknobbing' with the patrons. It was far earlier then he'd expected, usually when he got these gigs he was put on last, when everyone was too drunk or too tired to care what was on. But they'd put him up second. Perhaps he really was on the way back up. 

He took a glass of wine off a tray a waiter was offering around. Although he felt a little guilty at partying while Mark was home sick, he didn't feel like calling it a night yet. Performing always charged him up. 

~~~ 

"Josh?" Kate whispered. "You awake?" 

"Mmmph. Yeah." He sat up in bed and turned the bedside lamp on. "Hey." 

"Hey yourself." She sat next to him and they made out for a while. 

"Josh?" 

"Mm? What?" 

"Is something up? You've been like a poster child for therapy since we left." 

He snorted silently at that, looking down at his hands again. That was one killer of a bruise. 

"What is it? Please?" Katie put her palms on his cheeks and forced his eyes to meet hers. 

"As for therapy, I'm supposed to start it when we get back to the city." 

"Oh sweetie…… why?" 

"Mom and Dad are breaking up. It's no big deal, just sort of screwing me up at the moment. Sorry you have to deal with it." 

"Don't apologise." She held him in a hug. "You never ever have to apologise. I'm sorry you're going through this at Christmas." 

"Well, life's a bitch, right?" 

"I guess so." She gave him a sad smile. "How are Shannon and Tommy?" 

"Mom's ok I guess, she's so thorny when something hurts her that I dread even saying hi to her. Dad's staying in a hotel somewhere." 

~~~ 

"Curt?" 

He turned at the sound of his name. 

" _Brian_?" he said incredulously. It couldn't be real. Brian looked like an older version of what he had been in the seventies, any trace of Tommy Stone gone. 

"It's Thomas now but yeah." Brian breathed in, his lips parting a little. So seductive even without effort. "How are you?" 

"Me? I'm good, I suppose. Fuck, Brian, how long has it been?" 

"A million years too long. You don't still hate me, do you?" They were both tiptoeing on eggshells, trying not to crush something fragile. 

"I never did." Curt's voice was vehement. "I couldn't hate you even if you stabbed me to death and then sold my body to a necrophilliac." 

"Really?" Brian's eyes opened a little wider at the reassurance. 

"Well, I could probably hate you if it was an ugly necrophilliac." Curt admitted. Brian laughed. "It's so good to see you laugh again." Curt still couldn't quite process that this was happening. Brian was here, was beautiful instead of colorless, and didn't hate him. Christmas miracles were seeming more likely every second. 

"I've dreamed of this moment for so long." Brian said softly. "You look really, really good, Curt." 

Curt swallowed, his tongue feeling thick. 

"So do you. Are you real?" 

Brian cocked his head to one side as if pondering it, a small smile growing into an impish smirk. 

"I _think_ so. But I could be wrong." 

They were bantering but it still felt surreal, uncomfortable. Curt wished he knew the right thing to say to click them into real conversation instead of small talk. 

"This party's awful." Brian said, breaking Curt's internal diatribe. "I've got a room upstairs, do you want to talk there instead?" 

"Sure." Curt grinned. Parties always made him feel like a kid again, and he hated feeling like a kid. 

~~~ 

Kathryn stuck her head into Josh's room. 

"You staying in here Kate?" she queried. 

"Why?" 

"Because if you are then I'll take your room, it has a better view. Are you or not?" 

"Uh…" Kate looked at her boyfriend. "Am I?" 

"I'd love it if you did." Josh said, kissing her to prove his point. Katie didn't bother answering, preferring to continue the kiss. 

"I'll put your stuff in the room they gave me." Kathryn said as she left. Katie and Josh didn't look up. 

"You sure you want to stay?" Josh asked, just to be sure. Kate nodded. 

"Let me think….. turn down the chance to make love to my boyfriend on a huge bed in a beautiful house on Christmas Eve? Yes, of course I'm sure. Josh?" 

"Yes?" 

"No matter how screwed up your parents splitting makes you, never doubt that I want to fuck you as often and as nastily as possible, ok?" 

That got a laugh out of him, he lay back on the bed, hugging her thin waist. 

"You're queen of romantic bedroom talk, you know that?" 

~~~ 

They were talking more easily now, not that it was possible for the conversation to be more strained then it had been in the ballroom. They talked of mutual friends from long ago as the elevator took them up to Brian's room. 

"Malcolm's been arrested three times? I heard about one but not the other two. What for?" 

"Drug use, I think. Can't remember." 

Brian unlocked his room and ushered Curt inside. The view out the window was a riot of lights all over the city. 

Brian looked out at it, the reflection of the room overlayed on top of the thick glass. Curt was looking at his back. _Just like a soap opera_ Brian thought. Acting to each other's backs. 

"How have things been for you?" Curt asked. Brian turned around. He didn't want his life to turn into a soap opera. It was melodramatic enough. 

"My wife and I split up a week ago." 

"I'm sorry to hear that." Curt was sympathetic. Brian was surprised to find his eyes stinging with tears. 

"I'm not upset about it. At least, I don't think I am. Just – I don't know what's going to happen for me next." 

"I know the feeling." Curt said, stepping in closer to give him a hug. It was a reflex gesture, Curt had always been too kind for his own good. 

"Curt." Brian was murmuring against the crook of his neck. "It's been too long." He caught Curt's head in his hands and gave him a searing kiss. 

_What the fuck are you doing?_ Brian's thoughts were racing. _What in the name of all that's sane are you doing?_

"I'm just so lonely." He whispered against Curt's lips. "And I missed you so much." 

Curt stiffened, his back becoming rigid at the touch of Brian's lips, his hands dropping down from the hug he had offered. 

Then, after a few seconds, they came back up, crushing Brian closer. 

~~~ 

"It's probably sacreligous, fucking on Christmas." Joshua pointed out. 

"Yeah, well, gimme a pitchfork and pave my road with good intentions." Kate smiled and kissed him again, her breath hitching at the pulse of their bodies. "Cos I think I'm already on my way to hell." 

"Well, if we're going there already, let's commit some more mortal sin." 

~~~ 

"Oh God, oh God.." Brian's voice raised in sweet cries as Curt moved his hands and lips down Brian's body. His voice was still perfect, filled with sex and magic, although Curt could hear the gravel under the words, the legacy of cocaine. 

Curt stopped, stilling his hands on Brian's hips and his tongue's work on one nipple. Brian writhed. 

"If you stop now I'll fucking kill you, I swear." He threatened. Curt batted his eyelashes. 

"How will you kill me?" 

"I'll tie you down and fuck you to death." 

"Promises, promises." 

"Curt… _please_ " Brian begged. Curt flicked his tongue out, touching the nub of pink flesh as lightly as possible. Brian almost screamed. "Right, that's it. On your back. You're dead." He flipped over so Curt was underneath him and began to attack his victim. 

"Let's see if I remember. You were ticklish…… here, weren't you?" Brian said, tormenting Curt with his fingertips. "See, now you know what it feels like. After I'm done with you you've got to behave." 

"Ok, ok, I'll behave." Curt shouted, trying to move away. Brian laughed and followed him across the bed, catching him in another kiss. 

"Enough foreplay." he whispered. "I need you inside me." 

~~~ 

"That was even better then last time." Kate said as she lay on Josh's chest, her stringy hair falling in her eyes. 

"Well, they say practice makes perfect." 

"That was pretty perfect." Katie looked up at Josh. "….of course, there's always room for improvement." She smiled evilly. It would have made Josh laugh if he'd had any breath to spare. 

~~~ 

Curt's back arched as Brian kissed his again. They'd been fucking for how long? Felt like hours. It was like they were in their twenties again, with the stamina to go all night. They hadn't known as many tricks back then though, and were surprising each other constantly with their acquired abilities. 

"Oh _fuck_." Curt almost screamed as Brian demonstrated another unfamiliar technique. He couldn't keep a coherant thought in his head for more then a few seconds, but when he could it was just one sentence repeating itself. 

_It's been too fucking long - God I've missed him - everything will be alright now_. 

~~~ 

"Ok, that's us spent for tonight." Josh finally said almost regretfully. Kate nodded. 

"I don't think I can move. No… energy……left." she sighed, snuggling against his side. "Night sweet." 

"Night Kittykate." 

~~~ 

Christmas Day 

~~~ 

"Come back to bed Curt, it's almost Christmas morning." Brian mumbled, sleepily opening his eyes to look at Curt by the window. Curt looked at him then back out over the view. Brian sat up, holding his hand out. "Curt, come back." Curt didn't move. Brian's breathing stepped up slightly, his lip trembling. "Curtis Wild, please look at me." Finally, Curt turned around and Brian's hand dropped. "Please come back to bed. We've never had a Christmas morning before." 

A tear caught in the soft lashes around his eyes, sparking there like glitter. Glitter of the heart, Curt thought as he gazed at it. Beautiful, perfect – glitter that he wanted to kiss away and taste on his tongue. How had he survived so many years without that taste of sparkle and dreams? 

Brian held his arms out again and Curt closed his eyes. So many dreams made flesh. The spot in the crook of his right arm, that was Curt's spot. Where he felt safe and loved and important. How many years had he survived the night merely by the memory of that spot? How did he have the self control to hold back long enough to gaze and remember? 

That was his place. Where he belonged. Curt knew it would feel like home. It was where he belonged. 

Curt felt his own heart-glitter slip down one cheek. He loved his Brianmaxwelltommy so much, every inch of his flesh ached to feel the matching space on Brian's own skin. And he loved Mark too, loved the dopey smiles and evil humor. 

Curt kept his eyes closed, he knew he'd never be able to make a fair decision with Brian's arms outstretched and inviting. Who did he love more? 

With a sinking feeling he realised his affection – more then that, he would die before letting anyone hurt either of them - his adoration, was balanced. 

He loved them both equally. 

He couldn't have them both. 

Brian was quite possibly his soul mate. They could fight and be apart for decades and hate each other and it would never change a thing. They belonged together. That spot under the crook of Brian's arm, that would never be anyone's but Curt's. 

Mark swore too much, hated eating meat but had no idea how to eat a balanced diet without it, sneered at almost everything, held Curt silently when nightmares woke him shaking, had a mouth of pure sin even when it wasn't cussing. Mark, who Curt had dubbed his other half. 

"Curt." Brian's voice broke through his inner angst. _It's showtime Wild, gotta make the decision right now. You gonna go with your angel from space or a rentboy from Scotland?_

He kept his eyes closed, no reason to tip the scales and make this even harder. He loved Brian so, so, so unbelievably much he couldn't believe anyone could survive this and breathe. Another tear hit the corner of his mouth. _That's what Brian's mouth will taste like when you kiss him, salt and sparkle. That's what Mark's pillow will be stained with when you leave him._ Had Mandy felt like that? When she found that smug little note they'd left her before running of to fuck their troubles away? Had she cried the way Mark would? He'd never thought of Mandy like that and wondered if Brian had ever faced the ripping he felt now. A war in his heart, factions of himself fighting for what decision to make. 

If had been merely a question of one or the other, who knows what choice Curt might have made. But life is never that simple and clear, never black and white. It was Christmastime, so Curt had to think about red and green as well as black and white. Red, like the carpet in Mark's apartment when he cut his wrists. _Curt, love you_. Green, like a kiss on a beach once upon a time. _A man's life is his image_. Red, like a gunshot at a concert. _I knew I should create a sensation gasped the rocket._ Green, like a little girl's eyes. _I'm going to.. uh.. go in my room. To shower and change and sleep. I guess I'll see you in the morning Dad. Maybe I'll see you round too Mark._

Katie. 

If it had been merely a question of one or the other, who knows who would have won, it was a 50:50 chance. But it wasn't one or the other. It was his long lost love, or his family. 

Only regret can reveal if a choice was correct. The sins we regret are the ones we never had a chance to do. Perhaps some day he'd regret all the sins he'd never have a chance to do. For now, all he could do was regret that he couldn't take both roads and decide after that. 

Curt opened his eyes. _Oh, perfection._ Brian was sitting up now, the bedclothes pulled up against the slight chill seeping under the heating. 

"I won't scream obscenities this time." he said quietly. "We can part on good terms and 'do lunch' or some yuppie garbage like that." 

"How..?" Curt asked. He'd hardly reached the choice himself and it seemed to be old news to his Brianmaxwelltommy. 

"Because you're always always so fucking noble, you shit." The smile Brian gave was so heartbreakingly, unhappily sweet it was almost poetry. "I hope they know what they've got with you. I hope they appreciate the pain you're going through for them." 

"I might have been going through the same thing for you, on the other road." Curt pointed out, leaning against the table and crossing his arms. The world felt so light now, the choice made, fate set into motion. The rest is autopilot, the point of no return fading in the distance. 

Brian shook his head. "I never had chance." 

"You fucking well did. I almost jumped you about thirty seconds ago." 

"You believe in re-incarnation Curt?" Brian asked suddenly, moving further down under the covers. 

"I guess so. Why?" Curt looked puzzled. Brian closed his eyes, looking like an exhausted child. 

"Next time, you can use as much studio time as you like. Jerry can fuck himself." 

That made Curt chuckle. "I don't think it works like that." 

"Well, it should." Brian's eyes stayed shut. "I can't look at you, Curt. I can't. Just go, back to him. I hate him because he's won you, but I love him, because he makes you happier then I could, really." 

""Bri – "Curt's voice cracked. "I guess I should start calling you Tommy. I love you –" 

" _don't_." 

"I love you so much I think if there is a God he'll strike me down when I walk out that door for being so fucking stupid and leaving you behind a second time." 

Curt could see Bri – Tommy's shoulders shaking under the covers. He was making his angel cry. What sort of fucker was he? 

"The kind I'm proud to know." Tommy replied. Curt hadn't realised he'd asked out loud. "I'm just lies and masks, but you… you're truth. If you'd chosen me then the Curt I loved would have been dead anyway. I want you alive, even if I can never taste you again." 

Their lips met, a kiss of tears and glitter and memories and what might have been and what should have been and what was. _The world has changed because you are made of ivory and gold._ For one second, everything was right and perfect and good and pure. Then they broke apart and the real world intruded this last time like the flashbulbs had that first time. 

A thundercrack ripped through the sky outside and Tommy laughed, scrubbing a tear away. 

"You're gonna get wet, Mr Rattt." 

"Yeah, well, guess so." Curt said, looking out at the rain. "Merry Christmas, Mr Demon. Let's… not do lunch, because I hate yuppies. But… I want to see you again." 

"Like I said, no obscenities this time. No bitter parting." Tommy promised. "Somehow I think we'll see each other again. Katie'll make sure of it." 

Curt raised one eyebrow in question. "You know Katherine?" 

"We'll keep in touch." Tommy promised with a secret smile. "Now go, he'll be waking up soon." 

"I love you." 

"I love you too Curt." 

 

On Christmas morning, somewhere in New York, a young man woke up to the sound of the doorknocker thudding loudly. 

"Well well. What a present this is. I thought I'd get a lump of coal." Mark said with a smile at the sight of a dripping wet Curt holding a box of croissants. 

"Merry Christmas." Curt said, sniffling with the start of a cold. 

"You're getting sick? Get in here. I'm feeling better today, so I guess it's time for Dr. Renton to help his patient get well." 

"Oh Christ spare me." Curt let himself be ushered inside, the door slamming behind him. 

~~~ 

Somewhere else on Christmas morning, Josh moved off the bed carefully so he wouldn't wake up Kate. She muttered in her sleep, her hand reaching out as he moved away. Josh kissed it lightly then went into the kitchen area. Kathryn was sitting at the table reading a book and drinking coffee. 

"Merry Christmas." he offered by way of greeting. She snorted. 

"Humbug." she smiled. "Princess Katie still asleep?" 

"Mm-hmm. We had a late night." Josh poured his own coffee and sipped it, wincing at the burn to his tongue. 

"You're up early then. You still get those nightmares Kate was talking about?" 

"No." Josh sipped his coffee again, the temperature having cooled slightly. "Not anymore." 


	19. Part sixteen - Lenore

Usually I like to go out into the waiting room and greet the kids, showing them that they're important to me, that I have the time. I wish I could have for him, but it was hardly practical for me to get up for such a short trip, so Janet, my receptionist, led him in. 

"So what's the deal? Do I lie on a couch while you tell me all my problems are related to a dream I had when I was four?" Joshua was dressed in his school uniform, with a black coat over it instead of the blazer. Two of my other paitients were from Manchester and I knew doc Martens weren't part of the dress code. 

"Do you see a couch?" there wasn't even a desk. Just two comfy armchairs and an overabundance of vintage expressionist posters. Josh looked around. 

"I take it I can't smoke in here?" he let the knapsack on his shoulder slide onto the carpet by his feet. I looked pointedly at the swell of my stomach. 

"I'd much prefer you didn't." 

Josh sprawled on the armchair opposite me, kicking one leg against it. 

"You married to the dad?" he asked. I put one hand on my belly, feeling the soft cloth of the maternity blouse under my palm. 

"I live with him." 

That got a smile out of him. 

"That's good." 

"You think it's better for kids to have a mom and a dad?" I asked cautiously. He glared at me. 

"Let's get one thing straight, ok? I'm not going to play head games. I'm here because Mom thinks I need help. So don't even try. It's good because it means you've got someone. What's his name?" 

"I don't think your mother's paying me to talk about my life." 

Josh snorted. "She can afford it." 

"Do you like having lots of money?" 

Josh just stared at me. I let a minute tick by. 

"David." I hauled myself out of the chair. "His name's David. Come on, let's go down to the coffee shop on the ground floor." 

"Should you be walking aound?" Josh looked worried. I grinned. 

"I'm not disabled. Come on. Is your girlfriend still waiting in the reception area?" 

Josh looked surprised. "You knew she was there?" 

I nodded. "She can some too if you want." 

She was a pretty thing, in a thorny way. More naturally aggressive then Josh, whom I believed would soften fast. Her eyes looked at me like I was an enemy to be defeated. 

He was silent in the elevator, she looking at me without even trying to hide it. 

"I like your hair." She vantured finally as we sat down in the small cafeteria. 

My hair's naturally blonde and very straight. I wear it in a thin curtain to my shoulders, pulled away from my face with a clip. 

"Yours is nice too." I replied. "A very kinderwhore messy prom queen vibe with the ponytail." 

"I'm too thin to be kinderwhore. You've gotta be plump and punky for that. And how come you know that word?" she poured six sugars into her coffee. Joshua drank his black and unsweetened. I laughed. 

"I'm not a fossil. I'm only ten years older then Joshua." I bit into my salad sandwich. I'll be glad when I'm only eating for one and can injest whatever shit I like. 

"Really? I thought shrinks had to go to school for like, ever." 

"I'm a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. Less university." 

"What's the difference?" Kate began to massacre her bagel. Her fingernails were dirty, covered in chipped silver nailpolish. Josh watched her eat, he wasn't eating anything, just watching her silently. 

"I can't prescribe drugs to my paitients." She guffawed with laughter, taking a sip of her coffee. "That's funny?" 

"Hear that Josh? No drugs for you!" she teased. "You can't even have the pretty little skittle Aropax like me." 

"You're on Aropax?" I wanted black coffee and a slice of fruit cake but instead I just took a mouthful of rabbit food and washed it down with full cream milk. No reason to give the kid my terrible metabolism. 

"I've got a prescription but I don't take them." Kate explained. 

"Why?" 

"Hey, I'm not your paitient, don't get shrinky on me, Miss-" she paused, not knowing my name. 

"Call me Nora, short for Lenore." I told her. "And I'm just interested, not trying to mess with your head." 

I looked at my sandwich. There was half left, but it was nearly all tomato and I hate tomato. I pushed it away. "I would murder for an ice coffee right now. Want to go back upstairs Joshua? Will you talk to me?" 

"Whatever." He balled his napkin and stood up, holding out a hand to help Kate to her feet. 

~~~ 

Josh crossed his legs on the chair. I decided not to tell him off for putting shoes on the furniture. I had expected it to take much longer then one visit for him to open up, I could tell how insulted he was to be here at all. 

I guess he really needed someone to talk to though, because he started to speak, looking at the green carpet, his voice soft. 

"I do love her, you know." 

"Kate? I could tell you do. You're so helpful to her." 

"That's the problem." His voice was so soft but I didn't want to ask him to speak up. "It's exhausting, loving her. Sometimes it makes me really depressed." 

"Do you ever think about hurting yourself?" 

"I don't do that anymore." Josh paused, chipping black nailpolish off one finger, the same gesture I'd noticed Kate doing at the table. "But sometimes I imagine what it would feel like if I just cut my veins open, how the blood would pour out…" 

"Why do you think like that Joshua?" poor boy, he seemed like such a nice kid and he was in so much pain. Sometimes I wonder why I got into such a heartwrenching job. 

"Because I don't know how to help her. I can't fix it. And it's my fault." 

"Josh." I said gently, leaning over to touch his arm. "It's not yours to fix. Yo're not responisble for Katherine, ok? And I doubt it's your fault. You seem very good for her. Here, have a tissue." I handed him the box. "If you feel really awful before our next visit, can you write down how you feel for me?" 

Josh nodded, rubbing his eyes with the Kleenex. 

"You're a pretty good shrink, Nora." 

~~~ 

"And how was work for you and your Mommy, cherubkin?" David asked my stomach as I sat watching television. 

"Stressful." I replied. He gave me a long kiss, rubbing my belly. 

"Well, you stay put and I'll make us some dinner, hey?" 

"No celery in any form. I need something revoltingly sinful." I ruffled his hair, I always thought of it as being like crow's feathers, sharp and spiky but soft and shiny. 

"How about a burger?" he offered. 

"Mmm. Sounds heaven." I smiled. 

"I'm glad you're so easy to please. And a glass of red wine?" David pulled a silly face that made me giggle. "I vill be ze chef and your waiter for your stay." I pushed him back with a laugh. 

"Your french is terrible." 

"Sacre bleu! I vill not tolerate such insolence!" we kissed again, and he went to fix dinner. 

I chewed on my thumbnail, trying to think of a way to help Josh. I had the grim suspicion that he needed to give himself time alone, but that would hurt him, and it would hurt Kate. No-one ever paid a shrink, as he called me, to tell them they needed to be depressed and lonely to survive. 

~~~ 

And in the tradition of all things ironic, a few weeks later Katherine started coming to see me. 

"I have real friends. I don't understand why Dad's paying you to act like you are." 

I sighed. Joshua was begining to talk to me seriously, we were making progress. Now I had to start over again. 

"Your Dad isn't paying me to be your friend. I'm trying to help you Kate. And I don't have to be bribed into liking you. I honestly care." 

"Do I look stupid? I know you don't care and I want to tell you everything anyway. I wish I could just sit here in silence but I want to talk and I know you don't want to hear it." she was almost shouting. I didn't worry about it, the room was soundproofed. 

"How do you know? I'm here for you to talk to, whether you think it's because I'm being paid or because I honestly want to listen. So you might as well talk. Do you ever think about England?" 

"What? No, I don't." 

"Do you ever daydream about running back there, or anywhere else?" 

"I did the homeless thing. It got old." She shrugged. "And frankly London sucked. No, I'm happy living in New York, I just wish I could be actually _happy_ , y'know?" she shifted in her seat. "What're you going to name the kid?" 

"Amanda, after David's mother, if it's a girl, and Kevin after my uncle if it's a boy." 

"I'm named after Oscar Wilde's son. My middle name is Vivian. Why do people always name their kids after someone else? Can't they be the start of a new story?" 

I shrugged. "I never thought of that. I don't know." 

~~~ 

"Andrea?" I twirled the phone cord around my fingers. How on earth was I trying to settle teenager's problems when I behaved like one myself? Talking on the phone to my best friend always made me feel better. "Why did we get into this?" 

"Get into what? Psychology?" Andrea sounded sleepy. I was having trouble resting, it was about ten at night. Not that late, but our lives were exhausting. "Because we rememer what it's like to be that age and how lonely and scary it can be?" 

"That's it. I'd forgotten." I sighed. "Do you know how to just 'leave it at the office'? Because I don't know how to shut it off when I get home, and God knows I have enough to think about here." 

"You've got almost too much empathy for your own good, sweetie." Andrea said, and I could tell she was smiling. "How is stuff at home? David?" 

"He's good." I looked over at him asleep in front of the TV. "And I guess I'm good too. I just wish I knew how to help the kids without hurting them." 

"Sometimes there is not other way. Where there's pain there's feeling, where there's feeling there's life –" 

"Where there's life there's hope." I finished with her, reciting the mantra we'd shared through our college years. I could tell Andrea was smiling. 

"Exactly. And no matter how bad their lives get, they have the best girl in the industry." 

"Industry?" Andrea Marr could always get me laughing. Maybe I just had the eight-month blues they talk about. Maybe in the morning the perfect solution to Joshua and Katherine's problems would present itself. 

As it turns out, the situation changed without me having to do anything. 


	20. Part seventeen - Curt

That's the trouble with life, isn't it? That it goes on. 

I'd made my wonderful stand and gone back to Mark and been very proud of myself. I did love Brian (I still couldn't think of him as Tommy), but sometimes people who love each other just can't be together. I'd understood that, so I'd chosen Mark.

 

Huge defining moments where you choose what road you're gonna take are all well and good, but, dammit, Life Goes On. And every morning you wake up still thinking about them, and you kick yourself for it because wasn't the choice supposed to be the end of it, and the rest was gonna be autopilot? 

But it never works that simple. And Brian and I would call each other whenever we could, and we'd meet in hotels and sometimes the flat when no one was home, and fuck each other silly. It was magical, it was furtive, it was lovely but it was so wrong and I still couldn't stop myself doing it. The high road isn't all it's cracked up to be, trust me. 

I felt like I was living in a time warp. I'd kiss Mark goodbye when he went to work, and give Kate a few dollars so she could go over to her boyfriend's place to see what was up, and that was the present. And then Brian would come over and it was like the past all over again, as if my whole life in America was just a dream and I was still a jetsetting junkie rockstar with a beautiful angel from space at my side. 

Of course, anything that makes you feel that perfect has to crash and burn, right?


	21. Part eighteen - rock bottom

"Josh?" Kate padded barefoot onto the polished wood floor. "What's up?" 

"Oh, hey Kate. I didn't know you were here." Josh said, his voice a tired sigh. He didn't look at her, rather kept looking at a large painting on the wall. It was of a rocky coast, stormy waves crashing into it. Just paint on wood, it was dangerous and powerful and frightening. 

"I like the picture." Katherine said finally, when it became obvious he wasn't going to speak until she did. 

"Thankyou." Josh swallowed, closed his eyes and let out a long shuddering breath that he'd obviously been holding. "Kate, I love you –" 

"I love you too Josh." 

" – I love you." Josh ignored the interruption, studying the false waves crashing against an atificial shore. "But this isn't healthy for either of us. You understand, right?" 

"What do you mean?" Kate blinked fast but a tear slipped down, then another and another. 

"I'm not strong enough to do this anymore. I'm in therapy, so are you, and you demand so much energy from me every second… I don't have that strength to give anymore. I'm sorry." 

"No. Nononononono. Don't you dare say you're sorry." Kate said, her hands over her face, the elbows pulled in to make herself smaller, perhaps so she could somehow disappear from this. "Say you love me. Say we can get through this. I'll never cut again I promise I promise I promise I promise. Is that what you need to hear? Please Josh, don't do this." 

"It'll just keep happening." He explained. "We'll just keep doing this to each other." 

"No!!" Kate was shouting now, sobbing and shouting her words. She fell to her knees, jarring one on the floor and grazing the other against the rough cloth of her jeans. A dark stain of blood began to seep through. "I can change Josh, I'll change. I love you don't leave me please I'll change I can change I promise." 

"No-one can promise that." He said quietly, still looking at the painting. A tear fell onto his hands but he didn't move to wipe his face. 

"Please!!" Kate screamed. He didn't move. Hitching sobs slowing her movements, Kate stood up and ran out of the room, closing the door ever so carefully behind her, too upset to slam the pain away. 

~~~ 

"I can change I can change I can change I can I can." Kate mumbled, walking down the street aimlessly. "Josh what have I done? How did I fuck up so much? I try to be there for you and I drain your energy oh God what have I done I'm an idiot." 

She realised she didn't feel like cutting. Or hitting her head or pulling her hair. The first time she'd been upset in two years without the need to do it. She'd never, ever felt anywhere near this bad and she couldn't even take it away with that. 

As she waited for the elevator in her apartment building the stair door opened and Mark came storming out. Kate wiped her eyes and smiled at him but all she got in return was a glare. Puzzled, she cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. Mark looked like he was about to say something then gave up and walked off, his feet connecting hard with every step. Kate knew in her heart that things were about to go from worst to even worse. 


	22. Part nineteen - further down the spiral

"Get fucked!" Mark screamed at the door, blocking out everything but the hit he was preparing. The knocking came again. 

"If that's you Curt, fuck off." He yelled. 

"It's Kate." Her voice was quiet but forceful. 

"It's unlocked." Mark replied grudingly. She pushed it open. 

Her makeup was smeared, tracks of black down her cheeks like a mockery of a clown. Her eyes were bloodshot, puffy and so overflowing with tears. Her nose was running too. 

"He cured me, would you believe." She said, sitting next to him as he held the spoon over the flame. "I've never felt this bad and he cured me." Her voice cracked and she sobbed, just once, a harsh pre-speech cry of sorrow and pain. "I've lost them all. You hate me for dragging you into this mess in the first place, Josh hates me for needing him, Dad hates me for being angry at him. There's nothing left and I don't feel like cutting." This time Kate almost laughed, scrubbing her nose with her hands. Mark was wordless as she cried, soft little mewling sobs behind the tangle of hair that had grown so long in the seemingly short time he'd known her. Eventually her crying died off. 

"Hey Mark." Kate asked. "Got enough spare to lend me?" 

"Yeah, tie off, ye can have first." 

"Thanks."


	23. Part twenty - Katie

I dream about him, that we've made up and we're back together. When I wake up from that I want to die, because it isn't real, he's not here. 

There's nothing much here at all, we moved out of Mark's apartment a few days after everything fell apart. Dad went there, I don't know if he knew that's where I'd be or if he just wanted to talk to Mark, and when he saw the state I was in he punched Mark in the face. 

I screamed at Dad and made him leave, then tried to help Mark out. That was the first time we fucked. 

It's hardly surprising, really. The bed-hopping that had been going on must have counted as emotional incest once or twice anyway. And we were both lonely and alone and in the clean white world of heroin. 

I don't know if Dad's still looking for me, or for him, and to be frank I don't care. 

In this little room there's a table and two chairs, painted white. There's a window, the frame also white, with a view of bricks of the building next door and if you lean your head out and look down you can see a dumpster too. A little kitchenette area with a kettle and not much else, eating isn't our biggest hobby. 

Our bed is kinda lumpy, here's usually a heap of books on the floor around it. Mark introduced me to the writing of George Orwell, I don't think I'm really smart enough for it but I'm trying. 

This isn't happiness by a long shot, but it's not so bad. I still haven't hurt myself. I miss him so much, and I'm so furious at Dad for hurting Mark, but I can still breathe. The heroin makes it easier to cope too. 

I miss Ryn even though I know she'd just yell at me. So would Deedee, and we've sort of lost touch a little. She'd tell me to be careful, she got pregnant because she didn't worry about protection. I know it doesn't make sense, but I'm not being careless, I just don't care. If I have his kid then I have his kid. I'm turning fifteen in a month, I've been a drug addict for most of the last two years, I've live on both sides of the globe, I've been homeless, been in therapy, had my heart broken, learnt what 'family' really is and the lost it again, and sang in my school Christmas show. Getting pregnant would hardly rock my world at this point. 

Sometimes I wake up crying and Mark holds me. Sometimes I hold him as he sobs. I guess we have a good thing, a lot of people would die to have someone to hold them when they cry. 


	24. Part twentyone - Tommy

It was like living in a house where someone had died. Joshua was over nearly every day, and he'd sit in Katie's room, just staring at the walls, at the things on her table. Curt would wander in and out and the oddest hours, searching the city for her, blaming himself. 

And so I had to be the voice of reason. Me, the last person capable of the job. I had to tell them to eat, to shower, in Josh's case to go to school. I had to hold them together because otherwise they were going to fall apart. 

One day Joshua put together a bundle of things from Kate's room. An umbrella of Shannon's, two of Josh's compact discs, a book belonging to Kate's editor at the newspaper. A few other little trinkets. 

Josh must have stared at that box for a good forty-five mintues without speaking. Then he started to cry, shuddering sobs from the pit of his stomach. 

"I can't believe it's all over." He said to me finally. "I can't believe I'm going to take this umbrella home. Every time I look at it I'll remember the afternoon she borrowed it, I'll remember that it was here until I acted so stupid… so _fucking stupid_ , and ripped it all to shreds. I'll never be able to look at it without thinking of her." 

I put my arm around his shoulders. 

"I think you'll soon realise that for a while, _everything_ is going to make you think of her. The streetlights, the newspaper, a coffee cup." I rubbed his shoulder. My poor little Josh, I could remember putting bandaids on his knees when he skinned them as a child. When children grow up you almost wish they wouldn't, because you want to save them all the heartache of life and can't. "But it really does get easier." 

"I just want it to stop." He whispered, still looking at the umbrella. A glint of green in the bottom of the box caught my eye. I reached in and picked it up. 

"That was a brooch of hers. I thought I might give it to Mom." Josh explained. I turned the little clasp over between my fingers. 

"Could I keep it?" I asked. Josh nodded. 

"Sure. It's not really mine to give but I don't think Kate would mind." 

I looked doubtful at that. Katherine had every reason in the world to hate me. My son had broken her heart, I had broken her home. 

Josh read my expression exactly. He's a very perceptive kid. 

"She doesn't hate you, Dad." he said softly. "I'm sure she doesn't. She always said that you are 200% cooler then you were in the eighties." 

I hugged him. Poor Josh, poor wonderful Josh. 

~~~ 

Curt got home at five the next morning, soaking wet from God knows what. I made him a cup of coffee and sat him down at the table, putting the mug in his hands. I sat opposite him. 

"A long long time ago, I gave you a gift. It wasn't much, and the message I gave it with was full of shit. I want to give you a better message this time, but unfortunately I can't think of one. Not even a witty epigram." 

Curt smiled tiredly at me. 

"What're you getting at, Tommy?" 

He'd finally started calling me that. I'd thought about going back to Brian, since I knew that to Curt, Tommy Stone was an ugly, fake thing. But it was too much hassle to change my name with everything else going on, and I had been Tommy when I was a kid too. 

"The best advice I can give this time is _it all works out for the best_." I put my hand over his. "Here." 

I pinned the little green stone to his shirt. Curt looked down at it, then back up at me. He eyes were wet with tears. I wanted to kiss the off, stop him from hurting inside. 

"I don't know what's going to happen with Katherine. But I'll be here with you whatever it is." I promised. Curt nodded, then stood up from the table. I did too. 

Even though we'd been fucking for a few weeks now, this was the first time I felt I was really _holding_ him, that he honestly wanted to be in my arms. We stayed locked in that hug for I don't know how long. I hoped we could forever this time. 


	25. Part twentytwo - Mark

Kate had gone to make a phone call, we didn't have an outlet in the room so it involved walking down to the street, along two blocks and fighting with a queue of other potential AT&T clients for the one working telephone. I was just lying in bed, waiting for her to come back. Thinking about her. 

The first time I'd seen her, I had known there was something special about her. My actions that day are still a mystery to me, picking up a street kid and taking her to lunch. One of those little twists life pulls. 

The day I'd come home from work early, that had been another little life-twist. Like that movie _Sliding Doors_. One thing can change your world. This one thing had been finding Curt in bed with him. I guess it was Brian or whatever his name is. I don't really care. 

I don't know why I've managed to be so strong about this. Last time he and I broke up, I tried to kill myself. This time around I'm almost coping. 

Most people in the world would have a thing or two to say about my marvelous coping skills, going back to heroin and fucking a fourteen year old girl. But most people in the world can kiss my arse for all I care. This is coping. 

I loved Curt. I still love him, but I'm not going back to him. We just keep fucking each other over. Kate said that's why her and her boyfriend broke up too. Life's little parallels. Someday I'll be able to leave it behind. I'm not angry, or jealous. I don't know what I am. I feel like shite, that's for damn sure. 

And I love Kate. Not as a surrogate daughter, not like a sister, not as a friend. I honest-to-Christ love her. When she smiles I feel like maybe everything's really going to be ok in the end. When she cries I want to reach into her chest and pull the pain out of her heart so she'll be happy again. I love her sense of humour, and her laugh. I love her hair that's always messy and a little greasy. Her eyes… fuck, her eyes. I love her eyes. 

I love the bewitching way she looks at me. I love the times I wake up before her and watch her sleep, and then she opens her eyes and smiles lazily at me. 

I hope that somehow we can make it work. That this is more then just comfort for our broken hearts. Because she's so special, I don't want to lose her for anything. 

~~~ 

Kate opened the door, we never lock it, and stood in the threashold. 

"I called my Mum." She said, rubbing the inside of her elbow in a nervous gesture. "I'm going to go home." 

I didn't answer. She obviously had more to say. 

"I can't stay here, Mark. New York, America. I have to go back to my mother, try and get back on my feet there. Put everything in this city behind me, drop it all. I can start over there. I'll get new clothes, a new school, new everything. Fresh beginning. No more heroin, not just stopping but _quitting_." 

Kate looked quietly excited at the prospect. I felt happy for her even as my own dreams sank into the mud of reality. It was better for her, to get away from it all. From me. She still had a future. I loved her so much I was actually happy for her. 

"She's going to book me on the next available flight." Kate continued. "I'm not going to take _anything_. Just jump on and fly away from all this shit." 

Kate moved away from the door and sat next to me on the bed. 

"You understand, right? Making a fresh start. It's my only chance. I can't remain in this life, I'll die." 

I nodded. Of course I understood. It was the smart thing to do. 

"Come with me?" she whispered, resting her head on my chest facing me. I looked down at her. She smiled nervously, as if she wasn't sure what I'd say. 

"I thought you were going to leave everything behind and start over?" I managed to say finally. She nodded. 

"Come with me?" Kate asked again. I looked down at her face, her pale, thin, sharp little face. There wasn't any question about it. 


	26. Epilogue - Josh

Ten years. Ten years and the world had changed so completely that the life I'd lead in New York seemed like someone else's life. Someone else's story. 

Mom and I moved back to Seattle in the summer. Dad and Curt – it took years of vacation visits before he stopped being 'Kate's Dad' in my head – still live in New York City. Kate visited them last year, perhaps sometime we'll run into each other there. I wonder what we'd say. 

I went to see Lenore when I was last in New York. She's got my book on the table in the waiting room, she says it made her cry. Her son's pretty cool, I guess having a shrink for a mother would aid mental health. 

Mom hasn't gotten married again, I think Dad's the only one she's ever going to love. I think he still loves her too, him and Curt seem all the more closer because they understand the complexity and unfaithfulness of each other's hearts. 

They're a really sweet couple to watch, I hope someday I find somebody that I'll always be tied to invisibly, no matter how many years go by. 

Speaking of Curt, I wonder if he ever thinks of Mark the way I do Kate. Ten years is a long time for the heart to have a chance to heal, but her face always stays more vivid in my mind then any girl since. I wonder what she looks like now, Dad showed me a photo he took when she visited, but all you can really see is her hair, which is short and dyed black. She's got Amy held up in front of her face. 

Amy's her third kid, Dad tells me, the other two are hers but Kate was Amy's Godmother and her parents died. Lucky kids to have a mother like Kate. 

Whoever said relationships based on intense circumstances and young relationships never work should take a look at Kate. Twenty-four with three kids and a stable teenage marriage based on one seriously intense circumstance. Mark came with her to New York. From what I've heard, him and Curt even hugged when they met at the airport. I guess time heals all wounds, time and happiness. 

I suppose, in our own ways, everyone got a happy ending. Nobody died, or went insane. Dad and Curt were always meant to be together, years mean nothing in a love like that. Kate and Mark sound like they're very happy, when the children are a little older she wants to go back to school and become a psychologist. I wish her luck. Maybe she'll put my book on her coffee table like Lenore did. 

It doesn't seem like it, I know, but I think this is a happier ending then the one I would have written, had this been fiction. If it were fiction I would have left Mark and Curt together, and Mom and Dad, and of course me and Kate. That would have been so happy it would have been unbelieveable. But life isn't fiction. This is what happened, and how things turned out. Everything happens for a reason, it all turned out for the best, et cetera. 

If nothing else, I learnt that magic is real. 


End file.
